Google has announced the acquisition of Aardvark, the Internet search and social networking started by former Google employees. Neither company would release the financials of the deal, but it appears to be at least $50 million.
The move should help Google compete better with Twitter, and the move comes just one day after Buzz was released, adding social networking features to Google Gmail accounts.
Reuters says Aardvark “has pioneered a new type of Internet search dubbed “social search.” Instead of looking at Web pages to find answers to search queries, Aardvark’s service taps a person’s network of social contacts.”
The acquisition is Google’s sixth purchase since September, but one of its smallest.
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Netflix has revealed that it will hold a second challenge to improve the movie recommendation systems offered by the service to its customer. The revelation came from chief product officer, Neil Hunt, even before the company has announced the winner of the $1 million prize for the first challenge.
The contest was launched in 2006 by the DVD rental giant, aimed at improving predictions of titles customers might be interested in by 10 percent. Contestants from 186 countries, amounting to 51,000 people, decided to give it a shot. Right now, two teams called BellKor’s Pragmatic Chaos and The Ensemble top the leader board with The Ensemble just edging Bellkor’s with 10.10 percent compared to 10.09 percent.
The winner will be announced in late September when Netflix will announce the details of the second competition. “While the first contest has been remarkable, we think Netflix Prize 2 will be more challenging, more fun, and even more useful to the field,” Hunt wrote.
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Palm Pre, the latest in a long line of “iPhone Killers”, is set to be one of the most anticipated smartphones of the year.
Although the company has not yet confirmed its release date, Wired is reporting that it could be available as soon as March, and on the Sprint network.
Citing an internal document from Sprint however, Boy Genius Report is saying that a May release is more likely as that will give Sprint time to stock up and clear out older Palm inventory.
The smartphone was initially showed off at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show and the company’s stock has exploded on anticipation that the phone will be a blockbuster seller.
The phone has a rounded shape, a 3.1-inch touchscreen, a slide-out QWERTY keyboard and uses a powerful interface to “pull together information, photos and current online status data from sites such as Facebook, Gmail and Exchange to seamlessly integrate them into the address book and contacts list.”
