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Google has just announced their latest upcoming application called ‘Google Knol’. It’s a tool for posting and sharing information in the form of articles. Much like Wikipedia, Google Knol just seems to be more social and focusing more on the author’s name, and of course its ‘Google’ branded. ‘Google branded’ means Knol will have more higher rank results than the Wikipedia, answers.com or other sites in search results on general topics.

Users can share, rate, suggest edit, add contents to articles. There can be more than one article on a topic from different authors, unlike Wikipedia. In Wikipedia, all aurthors edit/enhance one article per topic. Wikipedia is ‘topic centric’ where as Google Knol will be ‘author centric’.

Here’s the intro at Google’s official blog:
“The web contains an enormous amount of information, and Google has helped to make that information more easily accessible by providing pretty good search facilities. But not everything is written nor is everything well organized to make it easily discoverable. There are millions of people who possess useful knowledge that they would love to share, and there are billions of people who can benefit from it. We believe that many do not share that knowledge today simply because it is not easy enough to do that. The challenge posed to us by Larry, Sergey and Eric was to find a way to help people share their knowledge. This is our main goal.”

So is this a Wikipedia killer? In my opinion, it’s not going be an easy task for Google to takeover the popularity of Wikipedia any-time soon. They need something more jaw breaking (a feature, functionality or an idea) to do so. Well only time can tell the ‘actual’ story.. :).

More on Google’s Blog:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/12/encouraging-people-to-contribute.html

Constructive comments by Roger Ehrenberg, who’s not so optimistic about the success of Knol, is here:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/57457-google-knol-not-setting-the-world-on-fire.

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Consumer and corporate use of the Internet could overload the current capacity and lead to brown-outs in two years unless backbone providers invest billions of dollars in new infrastructure, according to a study released Monday.

read more | digg story

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Researchers have developed a new form of biometric identification that could phase out the use of passwords, pin numbers and credit card numbers.

Scientists at the University of Houston have developed facial recognition software that recreates faces in three dimensions, providing a completely unique identifier.

The URxD application could be used to help people obtain access to secure facilities and authorise credit card transactions, according to the researchers, led by Professor Ioannis Kakadiaris.

‘Pins and passwords are not only inconvenient to memorise, but also are impractical to safeguard,’ he commented, adding: ‘The solution is to be able to tie your private information to your person in a way that cannot be compromised.’

A recent report by research firm Global Industry Analysts suggested that the worldwide market for electronic access systems, including biometric applications, will grow to $6.1 billion (£3 billion) in the next three years.

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