USA Tech News

Google's TV chief has admitted the internet is crap for TV. Speaking to the Cable Europe Congress in Amsterdam, Vincent Dureau told attendees:

"The web infrastructure, and even Google's [infrastructure]...doesn't scale. It's not going to offer the quality of service that consumers expect."

Dureau, is head of TV technology at the ad giant. He candidly admitted that his own YouTube video service was part of the problem.

Engineers point to two different problems with today's Internet. The bandwidth is too low, but more acutely, latency and "jitter" mean the quality of the viewing experience is severely compromised. If an email program, or even one of Google's YouTube's Flash-based movies is forced to wait for a second, no one notices. But if a movie keeps hiccuping, no one will use the service again.

Continuing the endless quest for an alternative to Google, Fast Search & Transfer and Yahoo rolled out new search advertising platforms last week, each hoping they had the answer.

Yahoo introduced the final piece of its Panama project, a new search marketing ranking model that takes ad performance into account when calculating where an ad will be placed on a page. Previously, Yahoo awarded the best page position to the advertiser willing to pay the most for a given search keyword. But as Google made clear with its recent report of 67% year-over-year quarterly revenue growth, ads that not only pay well but play well--ads that get lots of clicks--return better results for everyone involved in making them happen....

Google has reportedly looked at acquiring AdScape Media, a small company, founded in Ontario and now based in San Francisco, that specializes in so-called in-game ads. Google did not return calls seeking comment, and an AdScape spokeswoman declined to comment on the talks.

Though an industry insider who asked to remain anonymous said negotiations had stalled, such an acquisition would allow Google to take on old foe Microsoft, which last year acquired a similar but larger company called Massive. In-game ads, however, are one place where Microsoft would have a rare advertising advantage over Google thanks to thriving sales of its Xbox 360 gaming console and a long list of gaming titles....

Upstart search engine Powerset has just secured an exclusive license for natural language processing technology from Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center. It's a move that some are claiming will allow the small firm to someday challenge Google.

Steve Newcomb, one of Powerset's founders, characterizes the PARC technology as "the most sophisticated natural language technology known to man" and claims that it will give his company a major advantage over keyword-based search engines like Google.

The company has been operating quietly so far, but has recently been profiled twice in the New York Times and other major media outlets as it gears up for a private beta release of its flagship search engine. The company has not yet made details of the deal available, but the Times is reporting that PARC gets an equity stake in Powerset, while Powerset gets access to its technology and to researcher Ronald Kaplan, a leader in the field of natural language processing.