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China Launches New Search Engine
stupidfoo writes "With all those nasty pro-democracy websites that Google keeps turning up, what's a communist country supposed to do? Well, create their own search engine of course! According to the AP, 'Bill Clinton on Monday helped launch a new Internet search company backed by the Chinese government which says its technology uses artificial intelligence to produce better results than Google Inc.' Accoona Corp. was one of the Chinese companies that donated an 'undisclosed amount' to the recently opened Clinton Library. Using the search engine from inside the US doesn't show any noticeable amount of censorship, but it also doesn't show how it's anywhere near the level of Google."
We slashdotted China!
We bastards!
free tibet still gets plenty of hits....
even falun gong gets plenty of hits back.
Once I get off work im gonna have to anonymous proxy inside china and try it.
American companies who are looking to do business in the world's largest consumer market.
America is the world's largest consumer market. China merely has the most people.
According to a Chinese government spokesperson, "Accoona is a more efficient search engine because while Google uses automated system applications to crawl the Internet and add to their databse, we have assigned 481.2 million Chinese citizens the task of manually surfing the Internet and cataloging every site by hand. They work faster and far cheaper than Google's automated software."
There you have it.
I'm a big tall mofo.
I'm sorry, I just wanted to re-read that sentence in all its glory. And to pound my head on the desk every fourth or fifth word. I've discovered that the mental imagery starts to look more coherent if you soak the brain in at least three beers' worth of alcohol before applying the blunt force trauma.
On the bright side, if Fark ever holds a "Photoshop this Salvador Dali Masterpiece" contest, that sentence is gonna make me a surefire winner.
Maybe there is something to this.
A search for tiananmen square on Accoona reveals mostly "Travel China" sites, although it does show the National Association for Democracy page as the 11th hit.
A search for tiananmen square on Google finds sites like "student protests", "history declassified" and the wikipedia page.
Hmmm, maybe there is something to this conspiracy theory.
Japan is west of Seattle.
Perhaps you weren't aware of the fact that everywhere is west of somewhere.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
You search for democracy,
and engine finds you.
Chinese government which says its technology uses artificial intelligence to produce better results than Google
Perhaps they focused so much on "better than Google" that they forget to load-test it? AI software is not known for speed. Right now it is probably thinking:
"Hmmmm. 8000% more requests than I can handle? Should I lock up? Just process the first one? Let's check the rules database. Wup, that's flooded also. This flow-chart from Bob may offer a clue. It has heuristics prepared by somebody in a similar situation. Okay, it says, "call Mom". Okay.....what? I have no Mom? Hmmmm. Now why don't I have a Mom? Let's go research that....."
Table-ized A.I.
Thanks for pointing out this basic fact: Accoona is developed by a *US COMPANY* that simply does a lot of business with China. The header remark:
... is completely wrong. Accoona was developed by China Communication Corp of Hoboken, New Jersey. Last I checked, New Jersey isn't in China. Do a whois on accoona.com, also - it's adminstrative contract, its technical contact, everything is in New Jersey.
"Accoona Corp. was one of the Chinese companies that donated an 'undisclosed amount' to the recently opened Clinton Library."
Blah. I'll bugger off now and let this thread turn to Clinton bashing, as the article submitter was undoubtedly intending.
The human body can be drained of blood in 8.6 seconds given adequate vacuuming systems.
It's currently censored by not returning any results.
/* oops I accidentally made a comment, sorry */
The Chinese government was one of SEVERAL large investors. Not the only investor as the submittor tried to frame it. This search engine isn't some sort of special anti-democracy device whose sole purpose is to oppress the Chinese people. If you think Clinton was anti-democratic then you must be posting from Cananda right now considering the current administrations policies.
If we are going to start bashing everyone who has anything to do with making or receiving money from the Chinese government then there are going to be a hell of a lot of Neocon's on the list as well.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
This should signal google to immediately remove all of it censorship in China. They tried to do some minimal censorship but if that wasn't enough, why not just drop out entirely and put up a non-offensive message letting the chinese people know what they're missing. If that gets blocked too, so be it. I've talked to a few students from China in the US and they say that the public apathy over censorship is downright frightening. If your content is being censored, put up a message and withhold it all. Nothing they can do about that.
First search result for 'linux' is microsoft.com
http://accoona.com/search?col=mc&qt=linux
Accoona shows a lot of tourist-related information on Tibet and pro-Chinese links on Tibet, that considers Tibet as any another region inside China.
Google, in the other hand, shows a lot of pages related to the movement to free Tibet from Chinese domination. Note the link to the Tibetan Government in Exile's website, which ranked #3 in Google. Also, note that the #3 match in Accoona (under "sponsored links"), shows the Chinese government's page on Tibet.
Isn't this undeniable proof that Accoona's filtering works?
Do a search for "linux" on google and on accoona.
Other searches provided just as useless results.
Linux on google:
www.linux.org/
www.linux.com/
www.redhat.com/
www.kernel.org/
www.debian.org/
www.linuxjourn
www.linux-mandrake.com/
www.linux-laptop
www.linuxtoday.com/
www.gentoo.org/
Linux on accoona:
http://software-linux.jovencitas-cachondas.org/
http://software-for-linux.jovencitas-cachondas.o
http://programas-para-linux.jovencitas-cachond
http://linux-software.jovencitas-cachondas.o
http://programas-en-linux.jovencitas-cachonda
http://linux.ittoolbox.com/
http://ie.mojolin
http://zh.mojolin.com/
http://uk.mojolin.c
http://au.mojolin.com/
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
China's ICBMs
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
I'm no communist, but I hate seeing the debate muddied like this. Just to be clear, communism shouldn't be conflated with totalitarianism, just as capitalism shouldn't be conflated with liberty. China demonstrates that well; for most of the past half-century it was basically communist and totalitarian; now it is rapidly moving towards capitalism, but the totalitarianism shows few signs of abating, unfortunately.
You're a suburbanite.
The Chinese suicide rate is indeed high (note: i grew up in China), but the reasons aren't easily guessed.
First, obviosly, China has 4-5 times the population. That makes China's about twice the percent.
Second, China has a very high rural suicide rate. Many of the people who commit suicide are women. While men in America successfully kill themselves more than women do, women attempt it twice as frequently as men. Imagine if America had the same poor heathcare and readily available means of suicide (deadly pesticides are commonly used, as I understand it. those are available in rural China in a way that they are not available here in the U.S.)
I don't know these numbers but I'd like to check out suicide attemp rates in the U.S. I can't really guess which would be higher. As much as I love both countries (and an American who was raised in China might), both have serious problems that could lead to high suicide rates.
Having grown up in China finding such high levels of depression in America was a surprise. After all, we're supposedly leading the lives everyone wants to emulate...
What comes first, finding a teacher or becoming a student?
--Santa Claus