Apple has bought both the team and technology behind Chomp, a mobile app search engine that could find apps for users based on vague descriptions of what the apps actually do rather than by title or publisher, TechCrunch is reporting. Some of the 20-plus Chomp employees are already showing on LinkedIn as Apple employees, and the technology may be used as part of a rumored App Store redesign to help focus app searches.
Yahoo has launched an app filtering tool to its search engine. Yahoo's main page now gives a user a tab for Apps as well as the traditional Web, Images, Video, Local and More. With it, users can get app only search results and filter them for either iOS or Android apps.
Wolfram Research, well known in education and academic circles for its Wolfram Mathematica product and Wolfram|Alpha statistical search engine, has launched a dedicated portal for educators and students called the Wolfram Education Portal that is planned to offer online web courses, teaching materials, interactive textbooks, videos, demonstration slideshows, community features and more. The company is teaming up with the CK-12 Foundation to produce free content.
China search engine provider Baidu has made has signed a deal that with the music industry after years of tension over the way its site handles music searches. Baidu’s music search service delivers results for illegal music downloads as well as allows users to stream music through its website. According to the Wall Street Journal [sub. req.], it has now agreed to pay songwriters who belong to the Music Copyright Society of China when users download or stream their songs using Baidu’s search engine.
Ironic Software has added a new search engine and revamped interface to its updated file-browsing software, Leap 2.0. Version 2.0 eliminates the use of databases, enabling expanded scalability and faster performance. The update uses the OpenMeta metadata standard, allowing users to tag and rate files without changing the contents of the file. Apple’s Spotlight and other metadata search tools support the OpenMeta standard.
Searchme, Inc. has released Searchme 1.0, a new iPhone app that provides an internet search engine with a user interface designed specifically for the iPhone and iPod touch. The app presents users with stacks of web pages that can be flipped through after a search and can be expanded with finger touches, without requiring the iPhone to open the pages in a web browser. When a user finds the results they want, they then double-tap to load the page.
RAGE Software has announced Rage SERank 1.8, an update to its search-engine tracking software. The software allows users to track website rankings over numerous search engines including Google, yahoo and MSN. Over a dozen new search engines have been added to v1.8, bringing the total search engine count to over 60, and a major bug fix relating to Google's recent algorithm change has been instituted.
At its annual meeting for financial analysts on Thursday, Microsoft announced it will start offering its search service on the social networking site Facebook. The agreement should further the working relationship of the two entities, as Microsoft owns 1.6 percent of Facebook's shares, allowing it to be an exclusive banner-ad provider. Under the new agreement, a part of Facebook's 90 million members will also have access to Microsoft's search engine.
