Tag archive: algorithm

Ever tried to find love through your computer? Online dating has grown into a large, billion dollar industry over the past 15 years, and has become a mainstream way to meet your future mate. However, a new study, led by Northwestern University Associate Professor of Social Psychology, Eli Finkel, examines the truth behind online dating sites, and the bold claims that science-based algorithms will find your soulmate. Finkel, along with four other… Read More

Without much fanfare, Twitter is quietly testing a new feature that will highlight the most likely choice for news or a specific person after a user uses the internal Twitter search engine according to a report from GigaOm. For instance, a search for “Ashton Kutcher” will highlight the official account for Ashton Kutcher at the top of the page above the rest of the search results in the left column. In the right column, the same… Read More

This isn’t the first time Google’s been criticized for its possible role in promoting content and it won’t be the last. Recently the company made reference to the fact it has considered ranking news according to what is most important—which sounds rather subjective if you ask us. According to the New York Times, at a recent conference the question was posed of what type of content trumps less worthy pieces. Legendary broadcast journalist Ted… Read More

A team of researchers at Cornell recently finished a paper concerning the development of a computer algorithm to determine if a review is fake or authentic. After publishing the research, many specialty travel sites approached the group to determine how this algorithm could be developed to weed out paid reviews. Some brands and companies covertly use sites like Amazon's Mechanical Turk, Fivver and other freelance sites to build a library… Read More

College students have long complained that text books cost too much. But woe is the poor sap who has to pick up a copy of genetics textbook, The Making of a Fly, by Peter Lawrence, which was recently listed at the ridiculous price of $23,698,655.93 on Amazon.com. The absurd price of this out-of-print book, first published in 1992, was discovered by UC Berkley evolutionary biologist Michael Eisen, who went to Amazon to purchase the book. There,… Read More

A recent update to Google's search algorithm intended to knock down the visibility of “content farms” and other “low quality” websites in its results has reduced traffic to sites like Demand Media's flagship site eHow.com. But according to Demand Media, the reduction in page view growth has been negligible — not the nearly two-thirds traffic drop determined by some estimates. “Certain third parties that… Read More

Google’s been accused of becoming too big of a machine, taking over the Internet and wiping out privacy with it. But now it’s trying to make itself a little more human by funding a project to give computers some human emotion. A research team at Tel Aviv University is using Google money to create an algorithm that will teach computers how to experience “virtual regret.” According to the university, this type of program could give a computer… Read More

The gloves are off and Google has thrown the first punch. On Tuesday, Google released the results of a detailed investigation it conducted to prove that Microsoft's Bing is stealing copying search results from the world's largest search engine. Google claims that Bing is collecting Google search data from its Bing toolbar and using it to improve its own search results. In response, Microsoft fired back saying it does not copy… Read More

Don’t you hate it when you think you’ve taken the perfect digital picture, but something messes it up? It could be someone walking through, or the protruding gable of house. Andhaven’t you ever wished you could just change the picture and remove the offending object to reveal that pristine view?   Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University can help. They’ve developed an algorithm that can remove the unwanted bits of… Read More