Search giant Google has recently announced the release of their new search index system called Caffeine. The official blog post said that the new index provides 50% fresher results compared to their old index.

Image taken from Google Blog

Here’s an excerpt from Google Blog’s announcement:

“With Caffeine, we analyze the web in small portions and update our search index on a continuous basis, globally. As we find new pages, or new information on existing pages, we can add these straight to the index. That means you can find fresher information than ever before—no matter when or where it was published.”

This should be good news for publishers who’ve wanted their content indexed faster than the way the old system worked. Still, we’re waiting to see if the new index will give lesser sites a better chance of showing up on the first few pages of search results.

Glitches and bugs, gotta love them. The latest big glitch story broken by Gawker, was a glitch in AT&T’s site which revealed 114,000 email addresses of iPad 3G users. While AT&T did manage to take care of the glitch, iPad users only found about the data breach when the story was published online. The full story and details on prominent names affected can be found on Gawker.

Here’s what AT&T told Gawker about the incident:

“AT&T was informed by a business customer on Monday of the potential exposure of their iPad ICC IDS. The only information that can be derived from the ICC IDS is the e-mail address attached to that device.

This issue was escalated to the highest levels of the company and was corrected by Tuesday; and we have essentially turned off the feature that provided the e-mail addresses.

The person or group who discovered this gap did not contact AT&T.

We are continuing to investigate and will inform all customers whose e-mail addresses and ICC IDS may have been obtained.

We take customer privacy very seriously and while we have fixed this problem, we apologize to our customers who were impacted.”

At least it was better than saying “oops” right?

[High Five to Ryan Tate]

As geeks are known to ponder the mysteries of the universe from time to time, here’s another mystery. Michael Jackson and Mr. Bean one on one. Who wins?

Fortunately for us, Patrick Boivin provides the answer. Enjoy the video.

So who were you rooting for?

If you’re looking to make your computer more secure aside from your antivirus, you should consider getting a personal firewall. Don’t want to pay for it? No problem. There are a couple of excellent firewalls out there for free and we’ll be talking about one of them.

ZoneAlarm Free Firewall 9.2 for Windows is a great addition to your antivirus. The firewall will provide you with solid protection while on the Internet, public networks, and wireless networks.

A browser toolbar is included that protects you from fraudulent sites.

While the program is able to automatically configure the firewall’s settings, there will be times when you run applications that aren’t in its database causing the app to display a popup asking you to allow or deny access. Don’t worry, you won’t be drowned in popups as the Smart Defense Advisor accesses a database containing a list of known and trusted programs.

If you’re the tweaky type, the control panel lets you tweak the firewall to your preferred sensitivity.

ZoneAlarm Free Firewall 9.2 runs on all Windows version except for Win95. Some settings and features that are available on Windows 7 and Vista might not be found on older Windows systems.

To all the geeks who are planning on taking a vacation or going on an outdoors adventure, here’s one geek tool you should have. The Survival Kit Sardine Can contains everything but sardines.

Once opened, the kit contains non-aspirin pain reliever, adhesive bandage, alcohol prep pad, antibiotic ointment, matches, a compass, chewing gum, sugar, salt, energy nugget, duct tape, fire starter cube, first aid instructions, fish hook & line, note paper, pencil, razor blade, a safety pin, reflective signal surface, tea bag, waterproof bag, whistle, and a wire clip. Told you there weren’t any sardines.

The can is waterproof and even floats on water.
We’ll be featuring more geek tools as this series progresses.

[Update]
Here’s the next part of the series:
Giant Swiss Army Knife

Microsoft has sent out a warning of a vulnerability found in the 64-bit Windows 7. The vulnerability was found in cdd.dll or Windows Canonical Display Driver on 64-bit systems of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 that have the Aero theme installed. Since this is the default on most Windows 7 systems, we’re talking of a lot of possible victims.

Microsoft’s security advisory stated:

“If exploited, it would likely cause the affected system to stop responding and restart. Code execution, while possible in theory, would be very difficult due to memory randomization both in kernel memory and via Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR).”

The advisory suggests users disable the Aero theme to prevent possible exploits. The next scheduled security update is slated for early June so disabling the theme in question is the best option for now.