Facial Recognition-based Search Announced

Knowing how random the results are from the current image search engines, Swedish company Polar Rose has announced the launch of a visual search engine that should hopefully make image searching a lot more accurate.

Polar Rose uses facial recognition and 3D imaging software to provide a whole new method for web-based image searches. A beta of the software will be available for public use, by February next year.

Polar Rose is also working on a plugin for the Firefox and Internet Explorer, which pops up a small symbol when the browser opens a Web page containing a photo of a face. When a user clicks on the symbol, the Polar Rose service looks for matching photos in its database. Users also can tag existing photos in the database to help train Polar Rose's matching engine.

Brazil Court Orders Youtube Shut

A Brazilian court ordered the popular video sharing service YouTube, a unit of Internet search provider Google Inc., to be shut down until it removes a celebrity sex video from its site, a judicial clerk said on Thursday.

Daniela Cicarelli, a model and ex-wife of soccer great Ronaldo, sued YouTube after a video of her apparently having sex in shallow water on a beach with her boyfriend was posted to the site. For days it was the most viewed video in Brazil. Cicarelli and boyfriend Tato Malzoni filed to force YouTube to take the video down and demanded $116,000 in damages for each day the video remains up. Some copies of the video have been taken off the site but users have reposted it. The case dragged on for several months before they filed a third suit in December requesting that YouTube be shut down as long as the video is available to users. The court honored that request on Wednesday, but legal experts say the ruling by the Brazilian court could be difficult to enforce in the United States, where YouTube is based.

Last year, a Brazilian court demanded Google disclose data on local users of its social networking site Orkut who had pages with content supporting racism or child pornography. Google took down some of those Orkut pages but has said that under U.S. law it could not reveal user data. Google was not immediately available for comment.

New Search Engine Offers 5GB Email Account

New search engine, Kakle.com (beta) has offered free 5 GB email accounts and a community social network for all its users. The search engine also has its own Instant Messenger with voice and video, which is interoperable with AIM, Yahoo, MSN and ICQ.

Other features of Kakle.com include mobile downloads, flash-based games, personalized portal and 'meta results' that ranks the major search engines. The community social network gives users, the ability to upload 24 and videos, free of charge. Also, Kakle.com offers a directory of categories, such as shopping, travel, entertainment to search from.

The site is currently looking for feedback from users and advertisers, but is functional and is looking to come out of beta soon.

Microsoft Criticized For Gifts to Bloggers

Microsoft has been accused of trying to influence and even bribe tech bloggers by 'gifting' them Acer Ferrari PCs, loaded with Microsoft Vista. The two models (Acer Ferrari 1000 and 5000), worth approximately $2,400 each, were handed to big and small bloggers as Christmas gifts.

Microsoft issued a statement last week, saying the company "sent out machines loaded with Windows Vista, to bloggers to encourage them to experience the product and to solicit their valuable feedback, offering full disclosure that no editorial commentary was expected as a condition of acceptance." However, the issue has drawn criticism from some of the bloggers themselves, as well as others, on grounds that these bloggers are bound by journalistic ethics which prohibits 'gifts' from companies they write about.

After the matter was publicized on the net and widely criticized by internet surfers, a Microsoft employee sent an e-mail to some of the recipients of the laptops, asking them to return or give away the machines when they had finished evaluating Vista. However, the spokeswoman for Microsoft stated that the follow-up message had caused confusion and that the bloggers were still welcome to keep the computers they had been given.
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