Google's CEO is Googled

Google says its mission is "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." But it does not appear to take kindly to those who use its search engine to organize and publish information about its own executives.

CNETNews.com, a technology news Web site, said last week that Google had told it that the company would not answer any questions from CNET's reporters until July 2006. The move came after CNET published an article last month that discussed how the Google search engine can uncover personal information and that raised questions about what information Google collects about its users.

The article, by Elinor Mills, a CNET staff writer, gave several examples of information about Google's chief executive, Eric E. Schmidt, that could be gleaned from the search engine. These included that his shares in the company were worth $1.5 billion, that he lived in Atherton, Calif., that he was the host of a $10,000-a-plate fund-raiser for Al Gore's presidential campaign and that he was a pilot.Details about his wife has been collected.

After the article appeared, David Krane, Google's director of public relations, called CNET editors to complain, said Jai Singh, the editor in chief of CNETNews.com. "They were unhappy about the fact we used Schmidt's private information in our story," Mr. Singh said. "Our view is what we published was all public information, and we actually used their own product to find it."

He said Mr. Krane called back to say that Google would shutout CNET for a year.

IBM to offer Unstructured Information Management Architecture (UIMA)

Here is an intersting news.

While Google, Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft targets simple but powerful keyword searches, IBM targets an unique area. IBM is looking to transform how office workers sift through the piles of data stored inside organizations as no major players are moving into this. ie., Google, Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft have focused on the public Internet instead of private record data retrieval.

IBM plans to openly offer other software developers its Unstructured Information Management Architecture (UIMA), a technology that can analyze text within documents and other media to understand latent meanings, relationships and facts. UIMA will allow many different suppliers of software used in knowledge management, search, business intelligence and text analytics to work with one another.

IBM is also offering its WebSphere OmniFind software for helping users perform searches on unstructured data in avariety of formats or languages, be they located in databases, e-mail files, audio recordings, pictures or video images

There has been an explosion in "unstructured" information on the web, taking the form of documents, images, comment and note fields, e-mail and even rich media like video and audio. However, the technology has not existed to allow software to search out and make sense of these disparate forms of data.

UIMA technology is expected to be made available through open-source software site SourceForge by the end of 2005. The UIMA framework can currently be downloaded free of charge from IBM Alpha Works at http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/uima/.

Wood to replace oil ...

The answer to the world's crude oil crisis grows on trees. Yes, its the belief of Juan Andres Soria, a graduate student from University of Idaho. He has reasons to say so.

Soria is testing his theory with the help of Armando McDonald, associate professor of wood chemistry and composites in the University of Idaho's College of Natural Resources. Though the idea may sound far-fetched, Soria and McDonald say the theory has precedent in nature — coal is the result of trees being subjected to high amounts of heat and pressure.

So far, Soria's research has focused on sawdust from Ponderosa pine trees, although he said any variety of tree could be used, including fast-growing varieties like those being cultivated for wood pulp. Only about 2 percent of the mass is lost in the heating process, he said. After the bio-oil is produced, he separates it by boiling points, or grades. So far, he said, he's identified oil grades that could someday replace gasoline, tar, glues and resins that make things like lawn furniture.

The process — in which sawdust and methanol are heated to 900 degrees Fahrenheit to create the bio-oil — is already drawing some interest from energy and wood product companies, Soria said. Ponderosa pine sawdust is only the beginning, Soria and McDonald claim. Next, they will begin testing to see if they can get bio-oil from pine needles and bark.

Still, he said, the bio-oil isn't likely to be an immediate competitor to crude oil. Crude oil currently costs about $60 a barrel, and bio-oil will only be competitive when the cost of crude oil reaches $80 a barrel, Soria said.

The importance of trees would be felt if this attempt succeed and the demand for wood increase. Thank God Veerappan is dead.