Report: Apple plans to reduce Google’s iOS presence by adding Baidu to mobile search options next month

Reports surfaced in China that claim Apple plans to integrate Baidu into iOS next month as the country’s possible default search function—suggesting iOS aims to become less dependent on Google’s services.

According to Chinese news website Sina Tech (machine-translation):

Sina Technology News on March 26 morning news, according to informed sources, Apple iOS operating system next month will be formally introduced Baidu search, Baidu and Apple between cooperation component in the China region.

Google’s Susan Creighton revealed last fall that two-thirds of the Mountain View, Calif.-based Company’s mobile search comes from Apple iOS devices.

Meanwhile, recent speculation claims Apple is moving to an in-house Mapping solution that would replace Google Maps. The firm also recently removed its publish to YouTube option in QuickTime for Mountain lion. If these latest rumors deem true, Apple’s move to Baidu would further indicate a significant effort to reduce Google’s presence in iOS.

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Google posts ‘College Hoops 2012′ basketball guide, builds bracket based on search queries

Earlier this week, we got the official “NCAA March Madness” Android app, and now Google just posted a “College Hoops 2012″ website acting as a resource for all things college basketball during the tournament. At the top of the page (pictured above), Google allows you to filter the bracket based on “Search Picks” or “Actual Results.” Clicking “Search Picks” will get you Google’s picks based on the teams with the most search queries. Actual results will get you the real/updated results from the tournament, and clicking any of the teams will send you to Google search with the latest news and scores.

On the page, Google also outlined a few ways to stay in the loop during the tournament. On Google+ you can join the conversation with hashtag #GoogleHoops, and there are even a few upcoming Hangouts with ESPN analysts and others in the weeks to come. As for scores, Google reminds us that typing the name of your team followed by [score] will get you results without leaving the search results page. We also get virtual tour of the stadiums during the tournament through Google Maps.

Swing by Google’s “College Hoops 2012” website for more information.
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Report: Google plans to reinvent search by understanding words

Google is reinventing its Web-search technique with direct information for queries to better maintain the majority market share.

The Wall Street Journal said Google aims to replace some Web links with summarized answers and facts. The search formula transition will roll out over the next few months as the search engine begins to merge relevant results with semantic search, which attempts to understand the meaning of words versus keyword identification. One source said the change could influence 10 percent to 20 percent of all search queries.

Under the new strategy, a search for “Mount Everest” will display key attributes, such as the mountain’s location, altitude, or geographical history, aggregated from Google-indexed websites. Longer queries might uncover a real answer instead of links to websites. For example, the question “What are the 10 largest mountains in the United States?” would subsequently reveal a list of mountains and not ambiguous links to various state parks or hikers’ fan pages.

Google’s top executive Amit Singhal told WSJ that the new search results are the product of hundreds of millions of “entities” stored in a database. The company’s Metaweb team of 50 engineers painstakingly gathered particulars on people, places, and things over the last two years to build an immense collection for associating different words through semantic search.

More information is available below.

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Google I/O registration opens 7 a.m. PDT March 27, last year it took less than an hour to sell out

Google opens its registration for its annual I/O conference on March 27. Remember, tickets sold out last year in under an hour so set your alarms!

The conference also moved from May to June this year where Google will debut many new technologies, including some Glasses hopefully. While we do not have official word on the Glasses “Project WingFront,” we were told by a Google employee that this year’s I/O was going to be “totally insane.” Perhaps so insane that Google moved from a two-day format to three days this year.

 

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Google also updated its I/O website with some fun and games. Read more