Google's 'Hummingbird' hatches new search formula

MENLO PARK: Google has quietly retooled the closely guarded formula running its internet search engine to give better answers to the increasingly complex questions posed by web surfers.

The overhaul came as part of an update called "Hummingbird" that Google has gradually rolled out in the past month without disclosing the modifications.

The changes could have a major impact on traffic to websites.Hummingbird represents the most dramatic alteration to Google's search engine since it revised the way it indexes websites three years ago as part of a redesign called "Caffeine," according to Amit Singhal, a senior vice president for the company. He estimates that the redesign will affect the analysis of about 90 per cent of the search requests that Google gets.

Any reshuffling of Google's search rankings can have sweeping ramifications because they steer so much of the internet's traffic. Google fields about two of out every three search requests in the US and handles an even larger volume in some parts of Europe. The changes could also drive up the price of Google ads tied to search requests if websites whose rankings are demoted under the new system feel they have to buy the marketing messages to attract traffic.

The search ads and other commercial pitches related to web content account for most of Google's revenue, which is expected to approach $60 billion this year.

Google disclosed the existence of the new search formula on Thursday at an event held in the Menlo Park, California, garage where CEO Larry Page and fellow co-founder Sergey Brin started the company 15 years ago.

Google celebrates its birthday on September 27 each year, even though the company was incorporated a few weeks earlier. The company is now based in Mountain View, California, at a sprawling complex located about seven miles from the 1,900-square-foot home where Page and Brin paid $1,700 per month to rent the garage and a bedroom. The co-founders' landlord was Susan Wojcicki, who is now a top Google executive and Brin's sister-in-law.

Wojcicki sold the home to Google in 2006 and it is now maintained as a monument to the company's humble beginnings.

Google's renovations to its search engine haven't triggered widespread complaints from other websites yet, suggesting that the revisions haven't resulted in a radical reshuffling in how websites rank in the recommendations. The Caffeine update spurred a loud outcry because it explicitly sought to weed out websites that tried to trick Google's search engine into believing their content was related to common search requests. After Caffeine kicked in, hundreds of websites that consistently won a coveted spot near the top of Google's search results had been relegated to the back pages or exiled completely.

Hummingbird is primarily aimed at giving Google's search engine a better grasp at understanding concepts instead of mere words, Singhal said.

The change needed to be done, Singhal said, because people have become so reliant on Google that they now routinely enter lengthy questions into the search box instead of just a few words related to specific topics.

With the advent of smartphones and Google's voice-recognition technology, people also are increasingly submitting search requests in sequences of spoken sentences that resemble an ongoing conversation. That trend also factored into Google's decision to hatch Hummingbird.

Just as Page and Brin set out to do when they started Google in a garage, "we want to keep getting better at helping you make the most of your life," Singhal said.

Besides Hummingbird, Google also announced a few other updates to existing search features aimed at providing information more concisely so people won't need to navigate to another website. These changes are part of Google's effort to adapt to the smaller screens of smartphones that aren't well suited for hopscotching across the Internet.

The additions primarily affect Google's "Knowledge Graph," an encyclopedia-like box that increasingly appears at the top or alongside the search results, and Google Now, a virtual assistant that tailors key information suited to each user's habits, interest and location.

Besides providing informational snapshots of famous people and landmarks, the Knowledge Graph is now capable of comparing the attributes of two different things, such as olive oil and coconut oil. It will also be possible to ask the Knowledge Graph to sort through certain types of information, such as the creative evolution of various artists.

An upcoming update to Google's search application for devices running Apple's mobile operating system will ensure notifications about personal appointments and errand reminders are also delivered on a smartphones or tablets running on Google's competing Android software. Google Now also will start flagging new developments and information about famous people that have previously piqued a user's interest.

TomTato: A plant that grows both potatoes, tomatoes

A plant which produces both potatoes and tomatoes, described as a "veg plot in a pot", has been launched in the UK. The Tom-Tato can grow more than 500 sweet cherry tomatoes while producing white potatoes.

Horticultural mail order company Thompson & Morgan, which is selling the plants for £14.99 each, said the hybrid plants were individually hand-crafted and not a product of genetic engineering. Grafted potato-tomato plants have already been produced in the UK, but Thompson & Morgan says this is the first time they have been successfully produced commercially.

The company says the tomatoes are far sweeter. Paul Hansord, horticultural director at the company, said he first had the idea for the plant 15 years ago in the US, when he visited a garden where someone had planted a potato under a tomato as a joke. He said: "The TomTato has been trialled for several years and the end result is far superior than anything I could have hoped for, trusses full of tomatoes which have a flavour that makes shop tomatoes inedible, as well as, a good hearty crop of potatoes for late in the season."

The plants can be grown either outside or inside, as long as they are in a large pot or bag.

Ocean eddies are similar to black holes

WASHINGTON: Some of the largest ocean eddies on Earth are mathematically equivalent to the mysterious black holes of space, scientists say.

These eddies are so tightly shielded by circular water paths that nothing caught up in them escapes.

George Haller, Professor of Nonlinear Dynamics at ETH Zurich, and Francisco Beron-Vera, Research Professor of Oceanography at theUniversity of Miami, have developed a new mathematical technique to find water-transporting eddies with coherent boundaries.

The challenge in finding such eddies is to pinpoint coherent water islands in a turbulent ocean. The rotating and drifting fluid motion appears chaotic to the observer both inside and outside an eddy.

Haller and Beron-Vera were able to restore order in this chaos by isolating coherent water islands from a sequence of satellite observations. To their surprise, such coherent eddies turned out to be mathematically equivalent to black holes.

Black holes are objects in space with a mass so great that they attract everything that comes within a certain distance of them. Nothing that comes too close can escape, not even light.

But at a critical distance, a light beam no longer spirals into the black hole. Rather, it dramatically bends and comes back to its original position, forming a circular orbit.

Haller and Beron-Vera discovered similar closed barriers around select ocean eddies. In these barriers, fluid particles move around in closed loops ? similar to the path of light in a photon sphere. And as in a black hole, nothing can escape from the inside of these loops, not even water.

It is these barriers that help to identify coherent ocean eddies in the vast amount of observational data available. The very fact that such coherent water orbits exist amidst complex ocean currents is surprising, researchers said.

Because black-hole-type ocean eddies are stable, they function in the same way as a transportation vehicle - not only for micro-organisms such as plankton or foreign bodies like plastic waste or oil, but also for water with a heat and salt content that can differ from the surrounding water.

Haller and Beron-Vera have verified this observation for the Agulhas Rings, a group of ocean eddies that emerge regularly in the Southern Ocean off the southern tip of Africa and transport warm, salty water northwest.

The researchers identified seven Agulhas Rings of the black-hole type, which transported the same body of water without leaking for almost a year.

Haller points out that similar coherent vortices exist in other complex flows outside of the ocean. In this sense, many whirlwinds are likely to be similar to black holes as well.

Two Indian Institute of Science scientists crack mystery of black holes

BANGALORE: A scientist from Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore, and his student have successfully applied Albert Einstein's gravity theory to unlock the mysteries of black holes.

Banibrata Mukhopadhyay, associate professor, department of physics, IISc, and his student Indrani Banerjee worked for over two years for their landmark discovery. Their study on black holes has been acknowledged by the scientific community across the globe, including professors from Harvard University. The duo has published its findings in the international journal Physical Review Letters.

Black holes, as stars are known postdeath, are not visible to the plain eye. Though not visible, black holes devour everything in their neighbourhood given the gravitational pulls they exercise. It was hitherto believed that mass and spin are the determining properties of black holes and they would go a long way in determining the influence of black holes on their neighbourhood as well as their pre-death star existence.

Their new study, says Banibrata, who worked in Harvard for three years before joining IISc in 2007, throws more light on black holes and their properties, particularly the correlation between mass and spin or rotation. They have proved that mass and spin are not independent of each other but actually interdependent. They have established that mass of the star could be used to calculate the spin.

"The spin of the observed black holes is still a debatable issue — the exact value of the spin is not known. On the other hand mass can be determined more easily. Rotation of the black hole is determined by the mass and rotation of the initial star. The larger the mass of the initial star the greater it tends to have a high rotational speed and turn into swiftly spinning black holes. The smaller the mass of the initial star the slower its rotation and spin. This property shows that spin and mass are correlated. Hence if mass is known, the spin can be predicted. Eventually, only one fundamental parameter characterizes the black hole," Banibrata explained.

Indrani, a PhD student of physics, said, "First we were working on how stars collapse and end up into black holes. During the research, the thought of discovering the properties emerged," she said.

WHAT ARE BLACK HOLES?
Black holes are formed when stars exhaust their 'nuclear fuel' or are 'dead'. They are abyssinian spaces that exert strong gravitational force on everything in their vicinity. The hole is called 'black' because it absorbs all the light that hits the horizon, reflecting nothing. The largest black holes are called 'supermassive'. These black holes have masses that are more than 1 million suns together.

29 interesting facts about India

India is one facinating country! So here are 29 interesting facts about India! Enjoy!

1. India has the world’s largest, oldest, continuous civilization.

2. The name ‘India’ is derived from the River Indus, the valleys around which were the home of the early settlers. 

3. India invented the number system. Zero was invented by Aryabhatta.

4. Sanskrit is the mother of all the European Languages . 

5. India has the largest number of Post Offices in the world. However, it is not unusual for a letter to take two weeks to travel just 30 miles.

6. The Baily Bridge is the highest bridge in the world. It is located in the Ladakh valley between the Dras and Suru rivers in the Himalayan Mountains. 

7. The Vishnu Temple in the city of Tirupathi built in the 10th century, is the world’s largest religious pilgrimage destination. Larger than either Rome or Mecca, an average of 30,000 visitors donate $6 million (US) to the temple everyday.

8. The Taj Mahal (“crown palace”) was built by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan (1592-1666) for his beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal (1593-1631). 
9. Martial Arts were first created in India, and later spread to Asia by Buddhist missionaries.

10. The total distance covered by the 14,300 trains on the Indian Railways everyday, equals three & half times the distance to moon

11. Islam is India’s and the world’s second largest religion.

12. India is the largest democracy in the world.

13. The Kumbh Mela (or Grand Pitcher Festival) is a huge Hindu religious festival that takes place in India every 12 years. In 2001, 60 million people attended, breaking the record for the world’s biggest gathering. 

14. Many Indians find toilet paper repellent and consider it cleaner to splash water with the left hand in the appropriate direction. Consequently, the left hand is considered unclean and is never used for eating.

15. To avoid polluting the elements (fire, earth, water, air), followers of Zoroastrianism in India don’t bury their dead, but instead leave bodies in buildings called “Towers of Silence” for the vultures to pick clean. After the bones dry, they are swept into a central well.

16. It is illegal to take Indian currency (rupees) out of India.

17. India leads the world with the most murders (32,719), with Russia taking second at 28,904 murders per year.

18. Cows can be found freely wandering the streets of India’s cities. They are considered sacred and will often wear atilak, a Hindu symbol of good fortune. Cows are considered one of humankind’s seven mothers because they offer milk as does one’s natural mother.

19. Dancing is one of India’s most highly developed arts and was an integral part of worship in the inner shrines of every temple. It is notable for its expressive hand movements.

20. Many Indian wives will never say their husband’s name aloud, as it is a sign of disrespect. When addressing him, the wife will use several indirect references, such as “ji” or “look here” or “hello,” or even refer to him as the father of her child.

21. A widow is considered bad luck—otherwise, her husband wouldn’t have died. Elderly women in the village might call a widow “the one who ate her husband.” In some orthodox families, widows are not allowed near newlyweds or welcomed at social gatherings.

22. The Himalayas—from the Sanskrit hima, meaning “snow,” and alaya, meaning “abode”

23. In India, grasping one’s ears signifies repentance or sincerity.

24. The Bengal tiger is India’s national animal. It was once ubiquitous throughout the country, but now there are fewer than 4,000 wild tigers left.

25. India has the world’s largest movie industry, based in the city of Mumbai (known as the “City of Dreams”). The B in “Bollywood” comes from Bombay, the former name for Mumbai. Almost all Bollywood movies are musicals.

26. The lotus is sacred to both Hindus and Buddhists. The Bahá’í house of worship in Delhi, known as the “Lotus Temple,” is shaped like a lotus flower with 27 gigantic “petals” that are covered in marble.

27. The banyan, or Indian fig tree, is considered a symbol of immortality and is mentioned in many Indian myths and legends. This self-renewing plant is India’s national tree.

28. On India’s Independence Day, August 15, 1947, the country was split into India and Pakistan. The partition displaced 1.27 million people and resulted in the death of several hundred thousand to a million people. 

29. Chandragupta Maurya (340-290 B.C.), a leader in India who established the Mauryan Empire (321-185 B.C.), was guarded by a band of women on horseback.

Interest and Exponential Growth

The Compound Interest Equation

P = C (1 + r/n) ^nt

where
    P = future value
    C = initial deposit
    r = interest rate (expressed as a fraction: eg. 0.06)
    n = # of times per year interest is compounded
    t = number of years invested

Simplified Compound Interest Equation

When interest is only compounded once per year (n=1), the equation simplifies to:

P = C (1 + r) ^t

Continuous Compound Interest

When interest is compounded continually (i.e. n --> ), the compound interest equation takes the form:

P = C e ^rt

Demonstration of Various Compounding

The following table shows the final principal (P), after t = 1 year, of an account initially with C = $10000, at 6% interest rate, with the given compounding (n). As is shown, the method of compounding has little effect.

n	P
1 (yearly)	$ 10600.00
2 (semiannually)	$ 10609.00
4 (quarterly)	$ 10613.64
12 (monthly)	$ 10616.78
52 (weekly)	$ 10618.00
365 (daily)	$ 10618.31
continuous	$ 10618.37

Loan Balance

Situation: A person initially borrows an amount A and in return agrees to make n repayments per year, each of an amount P. While the person is repaying the loan, interest is accumulating at an annual percentage rate of r, and this interest is compounded n times a year (along with each payment). Therefore, the person must continue paying these installments of amount P until the original amount and any accumulated interest is repaid. This equation gives the amount B that the person still needs to repay after t years.

B = A (1 + r/n)NT - P

(1 + r/n)NT - 1 (1 + r/n) - 1

where

B = balance after t years
A = amount borrowed
n = number of payments per year
P = amount paid per payment
r = annual percentage rate (APR)

Ajith's 'Arrambam' audio at top

The audio of Ajith's Vishnuvardhan directed 'Arrambam' which also has Arya, Nayanthara and Taapsee in the lead was released today (September 19) by Sony Music. Ajith-Yuvan combination songs have always created a buzz among the audience, so did 'Arrambam' audio which opened at number one on Itunes India within a few minutes after its release at midnight.

Vishnuvardhan has tweeted "Hey guys, finally the album is out and I hope you guys enjoy Thala music. Thank you Yuvan and god bless. Have fun guys."

There are five songs in the album tuned by Yuvan Shankar Raja with lyrics by Pa Vijay. All the songs are peppy with 'Adada Arrambam' and 'Stylish Thamizhachi' likely to become popular.