Review of Startup Yokie.. a Twitter Based Search Engine

Search engines have been evolving a lot in the past couple of years. In the start of the decade, searching the web was seen as a rather mundane thing to do. There were various engines, and each simply indexed pages and posted them in a somewhat intuitive way. But then, Google came in and changed everything with its page ranking engine, along with the many other improvements they added, quickly becoming the dominant search engine on the web. But lately, things have started shifting again. The old search style of the early decade no longer holds true, and now a new startup out of Dublin called Yokie is trying to capitalize on this.

When someone searches for a nearby restaurant, or a meal they would like, or even a recommendation for a movie to watch, they no longer rely solely on Google. Instead, social networks are starting to take a major part in people’s lives. It can be a lot more fruitful to ask your friends to get a recommendation, rather than trust the word of strangers on Google, which is now well known to be filled with SEO enhanced pages. This is the concept that brought the creation of Yokie. They call themselves a people-powered search engine. In reality, they rely on Twitter in order to return relevant results to any query you have. Instead of crawling the web for sites, they crawl Twitter for tweets, and give you a current depiction of what the world is thinking.

Visit http://yok.ie/

The startup was founded by Owen Phelan as a school project, and is now hoping to turn it into a business. Going to the site, we can quickly see that Yokie is a different breed of search engines. They clearly expose in a few slides what their engine does, and why someone would want to use it. If you need to learn about something that requires recent results, for example, Twitter will always be more accurate, because people are typing in tweets all the time, whereas Google needs to crawl sites at regular intervals. But does this type of engine work? Google tried something very similar a few months back, integrating Twitter results within their main search page. Due to a conflict with Twitter, they ended the service, but there was no evidence that the real time search was missed. Also, Yokie only relies on Twitter for now, not Facebook or Google Plus, so the results are limited.

There’s no question that social search is a big part of the future web, and Google knows it, since the whole point of starting Google Plus is to try and get a piece of the action. But as for Yokie, right now its purpose is limited. They will have to increase its range to become useful for more than just a couple of targeted niches. If they were to integrate all social networks, along with regular search, and then have a great algorithm to mash everything together in a way that makes sense, then it may just become the holy grail of search engines.

Visit http://yok.ie/

New Nokia Lumia Apps Some Exclusive

Nokia announced some new apps coming to Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform. Some of these apps will be exclusive to the Lumia initially.

The applications that will be exclusive to the Nokia Lumia include:

-          PGA Tour

-          ESPN

-          Groupon

-          AOL Entertainment Hub

-          Tripdots

Apps available on all Windows phones include:

-          Box

-          Time Magazine

-          PayPal

-          Gaming from EA

-          Angry Birds maker Rovio.

Only time will tell if Windows and Nokia will catch on, but nobody can say they aren’t here to compete.

Seattle Upstart iHear Network

Seattle upstart iHear is launching an app. for Android similar to an iPhone app. called Snackr. If the web site Appbrain.com is any indication of iHear’s quality they give Snackr (Apple’s version) 4 out of 5 stars.

http://www.ihearnetwork.com/

iHear, run by CEO Paul Simons, takes your personal social network and turns it into a streaming audio news report. Think of Pandora for your social networks.

The iHear app. does appear to be even better. There are multiple voice options, some costing some money. Also, the app. pulls from both Facebook and Twitter.

The benefit of this app. is you can have your ear buds in while walking the dog for a walk and still hear your social updates. My question is do you really need to be that closely watching your social media feeds? Some people may find that a necessity, but I see it as more of a novelty.

Computers May Be Good For the Brain

It may seem fairly obvious to say that doing some exercises is good for the body. But what about the brain? In many ways, the brain looks like a muscle as well, and can use some exercise, but what type? According to a recent study, it seems computer use can be good for the brain, and protect your memory, thanks to some interesting activities that goes on when you’re in front of that monitor screen. So let’s see some useful information that you should know in order to keep your brain active and your body in good health.

The study basically spoke of the useful activities that can stimulate your brain, and help keep it in good health. Studies about the brain are not new, and they have been conducted for many years now. Typically, the results always point at mental exercises as the best way to keep your brain in good condition. The idea is that the human brain is made of connections between each of its parts. As you work your brain, by doing maths, logic puzzles, or anything that make you think, more of these connections are made. So if your brain is filled with connections, everything works much better, your memory stays more vivid, and you run a lower risk of getting any of the aging related brain problems, like a loss of memory. If each cell in your brain that contains an important memory is linked by 3 or 4 connections instead of one, it’s easy to see that it’s going to last longer and be more solid. This is the basis for this latest study, and the results it showed were very similar.

Basically, when you sit in front of your computer, you always make use of your brain in some way. You’re reading text, using a complex software program, or trying to understand a problem that requires you to think. Just like doing logic puzzles in a book, being in front of your computer will help your brain in some ways. Of course, if you just watch a video or play a shooting game, maybe the benefit won’t be that great. But if you play an interactive puzzle game, do some programming, or learn a new software, then all these things are useful, because they make you use your brain, and in turn they create more connections. So even playing a game, something that may seem like pretty much a waste of time, may have some good side effects. This may not all be intuitive, but that’s what the study showed, and it’s in line with previous research which showed that it doesn’t matter what you do, the important thing is to make your brain work in some way.

Of course, that’s not a license to spend all your time in front of a computer. The rest of your body needs to work out also, and staying sitting doing nothing is not good for it. You need to stand up, move around, do some regular exercise. But if you can mix the two, sitting in front of a computer and going out for some fresh air, then it’s probably the best of both worlds.