This time we want to get the celebrations off to an early start as two of our favorite and most used around ResourceShelf HQ prepare to reach and pass milestones.

1) NewsNow
This site will soon offer access to over 30,000 sources. Both mainstream news and hand selected blogs. Each item has a flag next to it showing where the news service/blog originates from. Searching is poor (via the free site) but the ability to browse news via hundreds of categories (what they call feeds) are wonderful and useful. Here’s the feed for the airline industry. Pages (feeds) also autorefresh (if left open) every 5 minutes. If you want to review each item as it enters the database that’s possible by visiting this color-coded ticker. A separate ticker for info tech press releases is available.

2) PublicRadioFan.net
This database that can be personalized (favorite links, time zone, etc) is both a real time directory of what’s airing on PUBLIC radio stations around the globe (WBUR, CBC, etc.) but also an excellent searchable directory of even more stations. What’s also useful is that in most cases you can go directly from PublicRadioFan.net and open the stream of the station you want to listen to. OK, cool but what’s the news? The milestone that soon will be reached comes from another section of the site, their directory of public radio podcasts will soon pass the 1,000 mark. Wow!

Continued success to both sites. Essential tools for web users.

+ PsycPORT (Psychology in the News)
This one-stop shop for news about psychology and related issues comes from the American Psychological Association. Access is free.

Key Features:
+ RSS Feed and Various APA RSS Feeds

+ Materials for Teachers

+ Content culled from a variety of news sources including Washington Post, AP, and Reuters

+ APA Press Releases Also Listed on Page

+ Mobile Version Available (via AvantGo)

Source: American Psychological Association

All Politics, All the Time

If you’ve read ResourceShelf for even a short amount of time you know that we’re big fans of
NewsNow.co.uk. This news site culls material from close to 30,000 news sites and blogs. While the search is poor (only one word at a time unless you purchase their service), the pre-built “newsfeeds” are excellent for browsing and “keeping an eye on” throughout the day.

These pages, if left open in a browser window will automatically refresh every five minutes. All newsfeeds are listed in the left rail and look for new feeds when major stories are breaking around the world. Make sure to also note how each article has a flag to identify where the news source is coming from.

Today, we want to point out the U.S. Politics Newsfeed. It is an excellent one stop for U.S. political news. A must bookmark for the policy wonk, academic, news geek, or concerned citizen, anyone interested in U.S. politics.

Again, all of the pre-built Newsfeeds are listed in drop-down menus on the left side of the page. On a related note, here are a couple of other feeds that might be of interest. We will continue to feature NewsNow feeds in future posts.

+ U.S. Current Affairs

+ US/Iran News

+ Guantanamo

A very cool way to use and demo iPhone. Btw, if PressDisplay/NewspaperDirect sounds familiar, it should. We checked and ResourceShelf has been posting about this company and the cool and always growing list of services they provide for nearly six years.

PressDisplay.com and its parent, NewspapersDirect, are home to over 550 newspapers from 76 countries in 37 languages.

PressDisplay offers same day, full-text, full image versions of these papers. In other words, download an exact replica of what you would see/view/read if you held the actually newspaper in your hands.

For the next month, a special promotion will offer FREE access to the database for all iPhone users. ResourceShelf friend and search guru, Barry Schwartz, has posted several images of PressDisplay via iPhone here.

From the announcement:

Phone users can point their Safari browser to http://www.pressdisplay.com to enjoy many of the biggest newspaper titles from the United States — including The San Francisco Chronicle, The San Jose Mercury News, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and The New York Post, plus hundreds of international newspapers such as The Daily Mail, The Wall Street Journal Europe and all 11 CanWest publications.

Newspapers PressDisplay are presented in their original layout, and the iPhone’s unique multi-touch gestures and auto-rotate feature let users easily zoom in to view any article or photo in stunning clarity…Mobile PressDisplay has been optimized for the iPhone, making it extremely easy to browse and read newspapers with section listings, zoom and pan, page flipping, auto-jumps that link articles spanning different pages, text or graphics views, bookmarks, search, monitors and audio support.

To access Mobile PressDisplay, simply enter http://www.pressdisplay.com into your mobile browser. Various pricing programs exist but you can get limited access (All members may read 2 articles from any issue (up to 7 days back issues*) for free.)
Note: We accessed PressDisplay using a Treo 700P without any problems.

These is also a mobile client app for mobile devices running Windows along with other client apps. RSS feeds are also available by country and publication.
* Restrictions do apply.

See Also: PressDisplay Interactive Radio

See Also: PressDisplay Mobile Radio

See Also: PressDisplay is also now available on several Blackberry models.

See Also: Watch the PressDisplay Video Demo

See Also: List of All PressDisplay/NewspaperDirect Titles

If you’ve been a ResourceShelf reader for a while, the NewsNow site will not be new to you. We’ve been writing about it (and using it) along with a few other favorites (like Topix) for years.

In the next few days, the NewsNow database will pass the 30,000 source mark. Those sources include mainstream news providers as well as a collection of hand-picked blogs.

We use NewsNow as a browsing tool. The free version of the site has very limited search (one word at a time), but the hundreds of categories (NewsNow calls them Newsfeeds) that automatically refresh every five minutes with new content are amazing.

For example, you can browse news by:
+ Region or Country. 109 categories. It’s truly a virtual news ticker. Example.
+ Hot Topics and Current Affairs. Many of these feeds and new ones appear as news is breaking. Example 1 ||| 2
+ Entertainment
+ Industry Sectors. Example.
+ Business
and many others.

Additionally, each entry on a “topic” page includes a country flag (to show where the source originates) and, in some cases, a notation that reads “Reg,” meaning the the source requires registration.

At the bottom of the page, you’ll find links (by day) back about one month.

If you’re a total and complete news junkie you can head to “Live Feed” that lists every article/story as it enters the database. Again, that page is updated every five minutes but you can also refresh it on your own.

NewsNow also offers another continuous stream, the “Press Release Wire” with a focuses in IT and computer industry news releases.

NewsNow is in the business of selling its competitive intelligence services. But in terms of free web content, we think the company’s soon-to-be 30,000-source site is one of the best resources available for staying current.

Multimedia Search: 100 New TV and Radio Sites Join AP’s Online Video Network

85 more radio and 15 new television stations have added AP’s Online Video Network and MSN player technology to their Web sites…Powered by MSN technology and featuring exclusive AP content produced specifically for the Web, the Online Video Network provides high-quality, in-depth reports from the world’s largest news gathering agency.

The AP Online Video Network began in March 2007.
Direct to AP Online Video Network

Source: Editor & Publisher

We pointed out last week that CNN’s fee-based service, Pipeline, was about to bite the dust. According to this page, much of the once-fee based video content, including some live feeds, will now be available at no charge beginning on July 2nd. However, it looks like some if it is already online, except the live video streams.

On Saturday afternoon, a revamped (layout, fonts, etc) CNN web site went live with a new look. Here’s a cached version of the old page for comparison.

Things we were quick to notice:
+ Direct links to “Hot Topics” at the top of the page. For example, here’s the iPhone page. Note the stories, button to create RSS of top-level topic (Internet). Note the search box to limit your search to a specific category. This takes you to a results page where you can sort by date or relevance. Web results found on right side of page. Links to related topics like, media and software. Btw, the RSS symbol is red, not the more common orange color.

+ Cool, news by topics and dates page. Excellent for browsing.

+ Link to CNN Video at the top of the page.
Video is also searchable. Create playlists and watch your selections in order. The page also provides links to CNN Podcasts.

+ Top of home page and video page offers links to I-Reports (aka viewer contributions/citizen journalism).

+ Search on main/U.S. site:
Search is powered by Google. Default is web search. Click for CNN News and Video search. Also, right margin of web search contains news and video results. It appears that Google’s advanced syntax works. No cached pages of web content are available.

+ Search on International Version of CNN
Powered by Yahoo. Same look and feel as U.S. version.

+ Note how many stories offer two, three or four key points at the top of the story. CNN calls them story highlights.

+ International and US versions available as well as a version in Arabic

+ All of CNN’s RSS feeds can be found in the top/right of the home page.

+ Links to a small amount of material from two other Time Warner properties (Time and People) on bottom of page.

+ Nine video clips (for top stories) found on upper-right of page. Scroll, three at a time

+ The home page also contains links (middle of page) to e-mail services, local news (powered by Topix), info about mobile services, and CNN Radio. To change location, head to the personalize your weather section. Enter city name or

+ CNN.com sections include:
++ News
++ World
++ Politics
++ Entertainment
++ U.S.
++ Technology
++ Business
++ Living
++ Sports
++ Time (as in magazine)

+ Direct links to CNN Blogs

+ Also look for box with lists of most viewed stories, most emailed stories, and top search terms, phrases. Ranking top stories by topic and most viewed, e-mailed videos are available. No info on how often these lists are updated.

See Also: CNN.com isn’t the only major web news site to get a makeover. About two weeks ago CBC.ca (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) also got a new look.

AOL takes page from blogs in news site relaunch

Time Warner plans to launch a test of its overhauled news portal [it's online now] on Tuesday, drawing influences from the uncluttered design of popular Internet blogs.

The online division of the world’s largest media company said it aimed to keep readers returning and to introduce a new generation of media consumers to the site by offering more interactive features such as polls and voting features and user-created news on one page…The new design divides the page into three vertical columns, with the heart of the programming at the center column. There, AOL’s editors and producers update and select top news stories, videos and photos in one place. D’Vorkin said the ability to personalize the news page will come in the next two to three months, using technology the company acquired from Relegence, a financial news services company.

Look for the new design here.

Source: Reuters

See Also: We’re not sure how new this is but it might be of interest. For a long time, Yahoo has offered a streamlined, what some might call a clutter free, home page that can be personalized. We just noticed that AOL is now doing that same thing at: http://aolsearch.aol.com/aol/webhome. Note the prominent display of the Google logo. Also, a “low-impact” of AOL Video search can be found at: http://www.searchvideo.com/.

A quick note from Gary.

Over the past few years one of the most useful research tools we have at are disposal (you do to) has been Topix. We often find items here we don’t see elsewhere and/or spot them first on Topix. Their crawl is first-rate as are the services they offers researchers. It’s good to see that more and more people are learning about and using the Topix service. I can only remember a few presentations during the past few years where I haven’t discussed Topix.

So, what’s up? Why this post?

We’ve learned that Rich Skrenta, a co-founder of the company and the CEO is leaving to spend more time with his family. He shares his thoughts here. Skrenta will remain on the Topix Board of Directors.

The good news is that Topix isn’t going anywhere. Chris Tolles has been named the new CEO. That’s great news. Chris has been a part of the Topix team since the very beginning, back in the days that Topix was located above a trophy shop in Palo Alto.

Rich has not only a friend but is a wonderful developer and business person. In other words great “technical vision” (building something useful for the searcher) and on the business side both hiring great people. Don’t also forget that in 2005, 75% of Topix was acquired by three major publishers, Tribune, Knight-Ridder, and Gannett.

Before Topix, many of you know that Rich was at AOL where he was a part of the team that developed the DMOZ software.

So, that’s the latest.

ResourceShelf wishes Rich the very best and we hope that in the near future this “infopreneur” is back online with what is likely to be an interesting and useful service. We will also monitor his blog for updates and some of the most interesting commentary about the Internet.

We also wish the very best to Chris Tolles and the rest of the team.

Topix illustrates that good things can happen to good people.

Fast Facts About Topix
Did you know that Topix provides very useful timelines to help focus a search by date and also spot trends.

Topix also offers cases sensitive searching. In other words, SAT is different than sat. Finally, the offer thousands of pre-built topical topics updated in near real-time with content. In fact, you’ll also find pages for every Zip Code in the U.S. and most Postal Codes in Canada.

Unprecedented Pre-Launch Buzz Sets High Expectations for iPhone Sales and Customers, Nielsen BuzzMetrics Reports
If there weren’t a lot of blogosphere buzz, that would be the big story. What follows is interesting but expected.

According to Nielsen BuzzMetrics, the global measurement standard in consumer-generated media, the buzz around the forthcoming iPhone was 33% higher the week ending June 23, 2007 versus the average of the prior four weeks.

What’s behind iPhone buzz?
* Top appeal drivers include anticipated features, especially visual voicemail and the inclusion of a music library
* Negative issues raised in conversation include high price point, lack of keyboard, and concerns over AT&T’s coverage
* Expectations are extremely high and reflect huge levels of confidence in Apple brand; consumers believe the iPhone will have a successful launch
* Several conversations related to the iPhone take place on Gizmodo, The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) and Engadget

See Also: The data for this report comes from BlogPulse, which is top-rank blog/feed engine at
http://www.blogpulse.com.

Text-Search Tricks Speak Volumes in Image Search Text-Search Tricks Speak Volumes in Image Search
A look at some research at Microsoft Research Asia:

Pure image search—based on the image itself, not words appended to it—is difficult. But it would be extremely valuable were it to be harnessed. Imagine yourself lost in an unfamiliar part of town. You pull out your camera phone, shoot a photo of your surroundings, send it to a database of images from your city, and, voilà, get a match that not only tells you where you’re at, but also provides a map that shows you how to get to where you’re going.

Sound too good to be true? Well, maybe. But don’t tell that to Xing Xie and Menglei Jia.

Xie and Jia work for Microsoft Research Asia, a lab known for its computer-vision acumen, and lately, they have been conducting experiments as part of a project called Photo2Search. The fruits of that research someday may revolutionize the way people interact with their surroundings.

The project uses a data set of more than a million photos of Seattle from Virtual Earthâ„¢. And the researchers have applied a novel idea to leverage the advances achieved in text search to enable people to apply familiar search concepts to images, as well.

“This project is about how to search millions of photos using a mobile phone,” says Xie, lead researcher for the Web Search & Mining group for Microsoft Research’s Beijing-based lab. “We could build an index for these photos, use the photo to find the most similar ones in the database, and have the location and other information returned to us.”

Note: The researcher’s working on this project are also working on MS cameraphone search research that we posted about a year ago.
Source: A “Press Release” from Microsoft

New Demos from The Next Generation Search Group at University of Helsinki
From the NGIR web site:

The Next Generation Information Retrieval group looks at search and information retrieval in a world impacted by Linux and Google where open source and open standards are becoming a dominant paradigm for internet services, and information retrieval is viewed as a key function in productive internet use. The group uses probabilistic and information-theoretic methods to model information retrieval, and is committed to open source software development. The group also believes distributed, semantic-based and multilingual methods will have a central role in the future of information retrieval.

Alvis — Superpeer Semantic Search Engine
What is ALVIS?

The project will conduct research in the design, use and interoperability of topic-specific search engines with the goal of developing an open source prototype of a distributed, semantic-based search engine. Existing search engines provide poor foundation for semantic web operations…Alvis is funded by EU’s Sixth Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development.

Demos
+ Alvis News Search Engine

A collection of news articles collected from a predefined set of Internet Search related news sites at regular intervals. The database covers the latest articles as well as archives from different popular Web news and blogs resources.

+ Alvis Wikipedia Search
Background about Wikipedia search engine.

+ SMART
Topic specific search for the recent EU project Statistical Multilingual Analysis for Retrieval and Translation.
Overview of SMART search available here. Uses ALVIS technology.

The crawl uses the ALVIS focussed crawler that is guided by keywords. The key phrases relevant to the crawl are one of the following:

relevance to statistical machine translation with key phrases: cross-?lingual information access, smt systems?, statistical machine translation, textual information access, statistical translation models?, cross-?lingual information retrieval, information extraction,

or both of :

relevance to machine learning with key phrases: machine learning, statistical learning, kernel methods?, string kernels?, rational kernels?, online learning, support vector machines?, SVM, principal component analysis, independent component analysis, PCA, ICA, discriminative language models?, canonical correlation analysis, margin-?based translation models?, statistical language, latent dirichlet, automatic processing,

+ relevance to machine translation with key phrases: machine translation, information retrieval, language models?, translation models?, computational linguistics, lexicon extraction, comprehension aids?, multilingual lexicon, user trials, user evaluation, parallel corpora, language modelling, computer aided translation, comprehension aids, multilingual lexicons?, multilingual corpora, cross-?language information retrieval, natural language processing, multilingual lexicon extraction, human language technology, machine translation technology, machine translation systems?, cross-?lingual information retrieval, linguistic resources.

A list of seed sites for crawl is also available here.

Source: ALVIS Consortium, Next Generation Information Search at University of Helsinki

+ Zannel.com, a Service to Share Video and Picture for Mobile Phones and Devices
It’s all about choice. Blinkx also now offers a similar type of mobile service named NowThen. We will mention more mobile sharing tools in the future.

+ Elsevier Acquires the Beilstein Database, World’s Leading Archive of Chemical Data

+ Ovid Expands Portfolio of Archive Content with BIOSIS Archive and Zoological Record Archive

+ New England Journal of Medicine Available via EBSCOhost

+ PILOTS Database Now Available via CSA Illumina Platform
++ PILOTS (Published International Literature on Traumatic Stress)

PILOTS is a bibliographic database produced at the headquarters of the National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in White River Junction, Vermont, and is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Its goal is to include citations to all literature on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other mental-health sequelae of traumatic events, without disciplinary, linguistic, or geographical limitations, while offering both current and retrospective coverage. Document types covered include journals, books, book chapters, pamphlets, technical reports, and materials in all languages.

See Also: The PILOTS Database is ALSO available on the open web.

+ Germany: Google Maps Send to Car (BMW’s)
and
++ Baidu’s Digitization Program in China (via Reuters)

+ Reuters: Microsoft Web search exec rumored to be leaving

We’ve mentioned the amazing collection of free lookup databases from Melissa Data for many years. It’s a “must have” collection to know about an use. The list of resources grows regularly. From address verification to Zip Code stats to IP geolocation and much more.

Now, another set of lookup databases from Quentin Sager Consulting.
+ NALENND Online: Very detailed information about every phone exchange in North America.
If you’re not a telephone expert but want to learn more, having your favorite acronym database handy might be a good idea. Btw, Telcodata.US offers another excellent sent of lookup databases for telephone information.

+ Banking: ABA Routing Number Validation

This Internet based utility validates ABA routing numbers. Immediately determine if a particular routing number is valid and determine the bank or financial institution it is assigned to.

See Also: Database: Federal Reserve E-Payments Routing Directory (via Federal Reserve Financial Services)
See Also: RoutingTool.com

+ Banking: European IBAN Validation

This Internet based utility performs basic validation of an IBAN. While it will not verify the account number it can quickly determine if an IBAN could be valid and identify the issuing country and the basic account number components.

+ Social Security Number Validation

This utility performs basic validation of a United States Social Security number. While it can not verify the actual number it can validate whether the number could be valid. Validation is performed using the United States Social Security Administration group issuance algorithm and high group assignment data tables.

Source: Quentin Sager Consulting
Hat Tip to PhoneFun. Keep up the great work.

See Also: World Telephone Numbering Guide and Other Telephone Info Databases

+ Two- and Three-Word Queries Rule (via SEW)

First Google, Then Microsoft, Now Belgian Newspapers Take On Yahoo (via Search Engine Land)

+ JP Morgan Report Shows PayPal Dominating Google Checkout (via Search Engine Land and Search Engine Journal)
Direct to Report

+ Wikio (French Language News Dbase) Now Offers English Version