Rachael Griffin

Now that Wikipedia is being rivalled by Knol , it seems fitting that Google is being challenged by a new search engine called Cuil. Created by Anna Patterson, a former employee of Google, the new engine, pronounced "cool", is attempting to edge ... Google out of the market by including more Web pages in its search index. The move is obviously the result of Patterson's knowledge of Google's search index, having been previously working on that particular aspect of Google. (Source: pcworld.com ) Cuil claims that it has indexed over 120 billion pages on the net and, unlike Google, can sort results ... (view more)

Wikipedia is everyone's one-stop-shop for quick answers online. The name, an amalgamation of 'wiki' (a collaborative website) and 'encyclopedia', is the "biggest multilingual free-content encyclopedia on the Internet." Once virtually alone in its ... field, the site faces new competition from Google. The seven year-old site has over 75, 000 contributors and over 10 million articles published in over 250 languages. Allowing people from all walks of life to write, contribute to and supplement articles has allowed it to amass a truly global, if not academically sound, archive of information. There ... (view more)

Online banking makes life easier, at least for those of us comfortable with the idea of transacting money from the home or office. Like most people, I assume that my bank's website is an extremely secure site, rigorously monitored to protect my ... money. Along with many other people, I may have been wrong. A University of Michigan study released last week suggests that, of 214 financial institutions' websites, every one had design flaws and over three-quarters contained at least one flaw that could potentially put customers at risk. (Source: cnet.com ) One of the larger problems seems to be the ... (view more)

Any Facebook user can tell you that within the past year the social networking site has become extremely cluttered. From ads to icons to applications, users' profile pages have become confusing eyesores for both the owner and visitors. In an effort ... to clean up the site, Facebook has reorganized and altered the design of the sites main pages. The new changes do offer some clear advantages, including offering personal information on a separate tab than the wall application, which lets friends post comments or notes on a user's profile. The clear advantage is a more attractive layout, and less ... (view more)

American company Psystar began selling a copy of Mac's PC for $399 in April and already Apple is ready to bite back for the infringement. Look-alikes are everywhere in today's consumer market. However, in the world of electronics, companies are much ... more careful than other industries about copyright. Although unable to handle normal software updates, Psystar's cloned tower is able to run the Leopard operating system (OS). (Source: arstechnica.com ) According to Apple Insider, Apple delayed its decision to file a lawsuit because it was only at the beginning of this month that Psystar began to ... (view more)

Now that iPhone mania is sweeping the globe, LG has launched the Chocolate 3. It's not coincidental that the new Chocolate was released alongside the iPhone; if anything, it's a sneaky move on LG's part to ride the media and advertising wave set in ... motion by Apple. With all the hubub about the pros and cons of the new 3G, the Chocolate 3 is poised to get some of the limelight. The mp3 Chocolate phone is offered exclusively with Verizon wireless and connects to Rhapsody's subscription music service. Complete with a 2- megapixel camera, the Chocolate 3 will be priced at $179.99, with a two-year ... (view more)

More than anything, it is the price of the new iPhone 3G that has bloggers, news agencies, and consumers in a tizzy. A few weeks ago, I wrote an article about the price breakdown of the new phone and how Apple can afford to sell it for less than the ... old iPhone. Among other things, this is because service providers, namely AT ... (view more)

Wouldn't it be great if air conditioning didn't suck the life out of your car (and your wallet)? Well, hybrid energy is getting a major face lift, all in the name of finding a separate power source for the air conditioning in hybrid vehicles. Rumors ... in the Japanese media are swirling that the next generation Prius may be the first hybrid car to include solar panels. Although Toyota has not made an official announcement, the media has jumped on the story. (Source: efluxmedia.com ) Thus far, the Prius has sold over 1 million vehicles and is due for its third edition soon. The new solar-panel ... (view more)

Last week I wrote about how Apple's new iPhone 3G retails for $100 less than its predecessors. The reason -- price drops in its component parts. It seems that the company is doing the same thing with the MacBook Air. Released in January, the Air is ... an ultra light notebook with a height of 0.16-0.76 inches and a weight of three pounds. Equipped with with an 80GB hard drive or the optional 64GB solid state drive (SSD), the laptop was originally priced at $3,058. (Source: apple.com ) The new set price for the 64GB SSD Air is $2,598, while the notebook loaded with the regular hard-drive remains $ ... (view more)

Microsoft recently announced the release of a new update for Microsoft Office for Mac 2004 and 2008. The 12.1.1 update, the second for the application, promises to fix all those annoying little inconsistencies that occasionally pop up. (Source: ... arstechnica.com ) Most Mac users get their regular update fix straight from Apple's official site, but that doesn't cover programs manufactured by other companies. Those of us using the Microsoft Office application can breathe a sigh of relief that the program is getting an overhaul. The new update aims to increase the stability and overall performance ... (view more)