Google’s Autocomplete Algorithm
A friend shared this series of Google autocomplete search results on a social network, it contains screen captures of Google’s autocomplete feature along with a venn diagram produced from the resulting terms:
I was curious if I would get the same terms, so I tried it. As soon as I found that my results for “Why are Buddhists” were different in than the screen capture in the image above I decided to take more of my own samples. I tried out a few religions that came to mind off the top of my head. Here are the results of my autocomplete searches, taken today between 11:11 and 11:15:
Google autocomplete is described as an “algorithm” that “offers searches that might be similar to the one you’re typing.” Based on the description below of how they are produced, you may have different results when you search:
As you type, Google’s algorithm predicts and displays search queries based on other users’ search activities. These searches are algorithmically determined based on a number of purely objective factors (including popularity of search terms) without human intervention. All of the predicted queries shown have been typed previously by other Google users. The autocomplete dataset is updated frequently to offer fresh and rising search queries. In addition, if you’re signed in to your Google Account and have Web History enabled, you may see search queries from relevant searches that you’ve done in the past.
Cyberactivism, iPhone 4 and The Courage to Be
(Note: This post was originally published on an blog about Apple technology, based on a few requests I’m making it available here. -MOR)
Apple has been hard at work the last few years building their reputation as a ‘socially responsible’ company. Like other greenwashing corporations (Whole Foods for example), this reputation is 9/10ths marketing and 1/10th wishful thinking from the cult of Mac. Yes, Apple did change components in their products to reduce toxicity and increase ease of recycling, and they do ‘check out’ the factories where their products are manufactured, and wasn’t Kermit the Frog in one of their ad campaigns along with Gandhi and the Dalai Lama? But does coming out with a ‘new and better’ product every few months and holding back features to encourage upgrade purchases really help reduce waste? And what are the standards they use to ‘check out’ those factories? Standards you would accept if you worked there?
So, we need to be asking Apple why workers at the Foxconn plant in China where they’ve been making the new iPhones, are committing suicide. Or we could just ask the workers:
continue reading "Cyberactivism, iPhone 4 and The Courage to Be"
