Google and Filter Bubbles

DuckDuckGo reports that Google users tend to find themselves in filter bubbles due to Google's personalization of what they see.

-DD

Voice Recognition Being Pursued With Neural Networks

Sharon Gaudin reports on the work of Andrew Ng, Chief Scientist for the search engine Baidu. Ng is developing neural networks which should allow computers to interpret human spoken requests accurately . The goal is to allow people who cannot afford traditional computers data retrieval capabilities over their mobile phone.

A concern about a search engine as your primary information source is that filter bubbles can develop, either due to the algorithm being used, or due to selected presentation by the database company.

-DD

 

DuckDuckGo vs. Google Search

Derek Walter recommends the metasearch engine DuckDuckGo.com for greater user privacy. Walter notes that

DuckDuckGo's search results come from its own crawler (named DuckDuckBot, of course) and over 100 different sources, such as Yandex, Wolfram Alpha, and Bing. You can also take the search engine mobile with its apps for iOS and Android.

Walter also recommends using the ZoHo Docs word processor and spreadsheet for privacy reasons.

-DD

 

DuckDuckGo

Zach Miners reports that database DuckDuckGo has redsigned its search, adding auto-suggest and local results.

-DD

 

Bubbling

The May 2 New York Times ran an article by Kate Murphy titled "How To Muddy Your Tracks On The Internet." This was my introduction to the verb "bubbling," which she defines as "the filtering of search results based on your search history."

This term appears to be derived from Eli Pariser speaking out against Google's practice of displaying only those results that your history indicates you would be interested in, which causes two people doing identical searches to obtain differing results. He gave a TED Talk on this subject exactly one year before Murphy's New York Times article, titled "Beware Online 'Filter Bubbles'."

-DD

Time's Websites of the Year

Time has announced its choices for the 50 best website of the year. A new search site that supposedly has a tiny staff is Duckduckgo. The site offers view privacy and other configurable settings, but is saddled with such a funny name....

-DD