The Pentagon’s Darpa research agency is sponsoring a search challenge to individuals and groups in an effort to learn more about online behavior. The contest calls for people to find 10 red balloons which can be located anywhere in the continental United States.

The winner of the contest will receive a $40,000 prize, and it will go to the first person or group that successfully finds the locations of the 10 red balloons.

The contest starts on December 5, 2009.

The aim of the contest is to learn more about people’s social behavior on computer networks and the ways in which large networked teams use online resources and connections to compete with one another.

The date of the contest has a special significance as well – December 5th marks the 40th anniversary when the first four nodes of the Arpanet were connected. Arpanet is the military-created computer network that was the forerunner of the world wide web.

The red balloons will be visible from public roadways for a single day.

Search groups will probably use various tactics for finding the balloons, including: paying for information; developing software applications to help with the search and even possibly disseminating false information to competing groups about the location of the balloons.

Darpa plans to announce other large and small challenge contests in an effort to find new ways to tap into pools of talented people and groups. The contest is open to people and groups from anywhere in the world.

Interested people and groups can register for the Darpa Network Challenge contest before the Dec. 5 deadline @ Darpa.mil.

[ Source: New York Times Online ]

A recent article in Linux World discusses the expected Q4 launch of Wikipedia’s search engine challenge to Google and Yahoo.

From the article –

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales is targeting the fourth quarter of this year for the unveiling of an open source search engine that he hopes could challenge the dominance of market leaders Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc.

The project is being run through Wikia Inc., a for-profit company founded by Wales that seeks to use a similar model to the Wikipedia community-written and -edited encyclopedia. He hopes to provide the tools and technology to allow programmers across the Internet to collaborate on the development and testing of a search engine and make the results freely available.

“The essential core principles are that I think search is now a fundamental part of the infrastructure of the Internet and it’s really fundamental to society as a whole, and therefore as citizens of the world we should be concerned about it being a secretive black box,” he said.

Source: Wikia targets Q4 unveiling of open source search engine

We wanted to share our two favorite search engine news sites with those of you whose professional and personal lives center around the use of search engines for web research, people searches and background checks.

Pandia Search Engine News and Search Engine Watch are two of the web’s best resources for the latest search engine news, information and tips.

Good luck with your searches!

The PI Buzz blog has published an informative post that lists information and links for some of the internet’s more popular private investigator and public record blogs.

You can access the post @ Blog proliferation – Private Investigators and Public Records.

The ChaCha search engine claims to be the world’s biggest live search site, where the search results are found for you by real people, who claim to be experts at web research.

Rather than rely on computer algorithms to find useful search results, the ChaCha search engine relies on thousands of human web searchers to weed out irrelevant information and find useful results for visitors.

You can try the Beta version of the ChaCha search engine @ ChaCha.com Search Engine.

Ask.com is launching a new all-in-one local search engine called AskCity that promises to bring together numerous local search services into one site.

From CNET News –

Ask.com is set to unveil on Monday a new local search service that lets people find maps, directions, businesses, events and movies–all through one interface.

The service, called AskCity, integrates data from other Web properties owned by InterActiveCorp, including Citysearch.com for business reviews, TicketMaster for event tickets, ReserveAmerica for campground reservations, Fandango for movie ticket purchases and OpenTable.com for restaurant reservations.

Source: Ask.com unveils new local search

Leet Speak is a form of internet code that teenagers and criminals are using to covertly communicate online. The code replaces letters with numbers and symbols for use in email and online chat.

Parents as well as cyber investigators and computer forensics professionals can learn more about Leet Speak at the links below:

Leet Speak news report – YouTube video link.

Leet Speak entry on Wikipedia.

You can also download a Leet Speak generator and translator software program at Leet Speak generator and translator.

According to TechCrunch.com there is a new video search engine that will revolutionize how people search for video online.

The new video search engine is called CastTV and is expected to launch sometime this fall.

From the TechCrunch post –

CastTV is taking many of the successes of Truveo and building on them. Search itself is significantly better than any other video search we’ve seen, and the user interface, which includes really smart filters (more on that below), makes it easier to find what you’re looking for, fast.

Edwin and Alex won’t disclose all of the technology behind the service, but part of the trick is that they are able to track videos through multiple links on a site, collecting metadata along the way. And they also parse the code on the video files as well, gathering additional information about the content. If tags are available for the videos (such as YouTube tags), these are indexed as well. The final step is actually even more interesting – CastTV will take the data they are able to collect about a video and search the web in general for additional data. If there’s a close enough match, CastTV adds that information to the content metadata. And unlike other video search tools, CastTV indexes movies and shows from iTunes and other for-pay services.

You can read the full blog post from TechCrunch @ CastTV Will Revolutionize Video Search.

Are metasearch engines a better and more efficient way to do people searches, public record research and web searching? A recent story on RawStory.com seems to think so.

The article discusses the advantages of using metasearch engines and discusses some of the web’s best metasearch engines that people may want to try for their online research.

From the article –

Which search engine is better – Google, Yahoo, or MSN? The correct answer is actually “all of the above.” Each of the major seach engines on the Internet indexes and presents information a bit differently. So why settle for the just one when you really need to unearth some important information from the web? With metasearch engines, you don’t have to.

Metasearch engines – which query multiple major search engine sites simultaneously and present you with the results – have become better than ever.

The article goes on to list some of the top metasearch engines available and discusses the features of each. The list includes dogpile.com, metacrawler.com, ixquick.com, vivisimo.com and mamma.com.

Source: Metasearch engines: A smarter way to search?

TechCrunch is reporting on some new improvements to the Yahoo Real Estate Search site.

Among the improvements on the Yahoo Real Estate Search:

1. Yahoo now supports finding and listing a house.

2. Researching the neighborhood (schools and community).

3. Finding a local realtor.

4. Getting a mortgage loan based on local rates.

5. Valuing your property.

You can check out the Yahoo Real Estate Search for yourself @ Yahoo Real Estate Search.