Google Adds Hot Trends To Search Results

Google seems focused on improving your search experience. Yesterday at WATBlog, we wrote about Google’s search snippets and Jump To features. The inevitable comparison with Bing came up and how Google’s been in the news some way or the other by improving it’s products and features.

Recently, Youtube announced Trending Topics on it’s site. Inspired by Twitter, this highlights the most popular videos on YouTube. Now, Google Search has jumped on the trends bandwagon. We wrote about Google Trends around a year ago. Now, Google also has “Hot Trends” which will tell you what the most searched topics are.



Google announced on its blog that it had tweaked it’s search results to offer additional information. Assuming, what you had searched for was one of the most popular searches that hour (top 100), it would get displayed at the bottom of your screen with information on how popular the query is (how hot is the trend), and a graph on how fast it’s rising.

Unfortunately, the feature is available only for USA and Japan. The aim is let people know what the latest buzz is about. From their blog “No more being out of the loop at your office watercooler!”

When I wrote the article, most hot trends seemed uninteresting, except “Howcast” and “Sexy Halloween Costumes for Women”.

The Trends of course, are frequently updated, and are USA focused. Now, the data would be extremely useful if it could be tweaked for more specific information. I suppose there’s Google Insights for that. So what’s the utility of the new add-on to the search page?

This feature, however, will show up for any query that matches the top 100. We hope this change will make for a simpler user experience, and help you focus better on the top, most interesting content.

This new feature is available in the U.S. and Japan. We hope it will help you keep up with everything there's to know about the latest trends online. No more being out of the loop at your office watercooler!

AIRCEL Signs a Landmark Tower Sharing Agreement with BSNL

Aircel became the first operator to sign a passive infrastructure sharing agreement with Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL). Aircel, the fastest growing operator, which currently has approximately 32,000 base stations, will now have access to approximately 45,000 BSNL towers across all its circles.

A significant portion of BSNL’s sites are electrified. Sharing these towers that cover 96% of all districts across the country will helpAircel expand its footprint and gain time to market.

Mr Gurdeep Singh, COO, Aircel, said, “This is a historic moment for the company. Aircel will now have access to strategically located sites across BSNL’s 21 circles (excluding Mumbai & Delhi). Leveraging BSNL’s passive infrastructure will helpAircel meet its aggressive network roll out plans in addition to reducing operational cost.”

Mr Kuldeep Goyal, CMD, BSNL added, “We are happy to partner with Aircel. BSNL has a strong nationwide coverage and offers the best value proposition in the Indian telecom market. Our objective is to provide quality and reliable service and thereby increase our partner’s confidence”.

Pioneer First 12x Blu-ray Disc Writer

Pioneer today announced its new BDR-205 Blu-ray Disc Computer Writer, the industry?s first and fastest model to feature up to 12x write speed for single and dual-layer Blu-ray Disc (BD) media.

The drive has been already introduced in Japan last week (read about the BDR-S05J here)

When utilized with a properly configured PC, the drive?s Low Vibration Mechanism Design improves overall writing accuracy.

“The BDR-205 drive represents our ongoing efforts to combine Pioneer’s engineering expertise with advanced technologies, and our next generation Blu-ray Disc writer is a great example of our no-compromise approach to optical disc product development,” said Steve Cohn, director of optical disc sales for Pioneer Electronics (USA) Inc. “We are bringing to market the fastest Blu-ray Disc writer to date, and it is just one of the many ’firsts’ that have come to define Pioneer’s 30-year heritage in optical disc innovation and leadership.” Dynamic Performance for an Array of Professional Users

When utilized with a properly configured PC, the drive’s Low Vibration Mechanism Design improves overall writing accuracy, especially for those preserving copious amounts of critical data. Designed for maximum flexibility, Pioneer’s writer provides significant solutions for multiple user groups, including:

• System builders can confidently recommend the sophisticated BDR-205 to their clients, noting the drive’s unique design, robust build quality and high grade parts
• With 50Gbytes** of storage space on a dual-layer Blu-ray Disc, professional users can utilize the BDR-205 to rapidly test high definition feature films during the authoring process, as well as to back up large volumes of data with ease
• Besides up to 12x write speeds for Blu-ray Disc media, Pioneer’s new computer drive also provides read and write speed performance up to 16x for DVD and 40x for CD media

The new BDR-205 Blu-ray Disc computer writer begins shipping October 2009. The retail version of this product, the BDR-2205, will be available Q1 2010 for $249 MSRP.

Nvidia Ready to Enter The DirectX 11 Gaming With Upcoming 40nm GT300 GPU

Nvidia lagged behind rival AMD in the introduction of a Direct X 11 GPU but it seems that the company is ready to make an impressive come back with the upcoming GT300 chip, which bloggers already describe as a "computational beast".

Nvidia's upcoming 40nm GPU codenamed "Fermi" or simpler "GT300" is slated for a Q4 2009 launch, meaning that it will most probably show up around the end of November.

Rumors about the new chip indicate that it will pack a lot of architectural changes compared to Nvidia's GT200 generation of GPUs.

Manufactured by TSMC, the 40nm chip is expected to pack three billion transistors and 16 Streaming Multiprocessor (former Shader Cluster). Each multiprocessor has 32 cores, with each core to be able to execute an integer or a floating point instruction per clock per thread.

The chip also packs six 64-bit GDDR5 memory controllers for a grand total of 384-bit, matching AMD's current offering with the Radeon HD 5800 series.

Possible configurations of the new boards should include 1.5, 3.0 GB and 6GB of GDDR5 memory.

Of course, the GT300 gives direct hardware access for CUDA 3.0, DirectX 11, OpenGL 3.1 and OpenCL.

Nvidia should have been very busy with the design of the new architecture fir the GT300 chip. According to early reports, the chip will be more than three times more powerful than the GT200 GPU.

Nvidia has made an official statement on the state of the GT300 yields last week, after some stories online reported that the GT300 yields were bad, with only nine chips to work per wafer. An Nvidia' product manager said that the company's 40nm yields were "fine" and described the information as "baseless."

It seems that the complicated design of the new GT300 chip was the reason behind the "late" introduction of the chip in the market. AMD has already made a strong statement with the release of its Radeon HD5800 series but Nvidia believes that they can make its DirectX 11 GPU even faster.

All we have to do is to wait to see if the GT300 can outperform the HD 5870, HD 5850X2 and the HD 5870X2 chips, in a very interesting race in the GPU market.