The relatively new search engine Mahalo (Hawaiian for ‘Thank-You’) puts a spin on proceedings by pitching itself as a human powered search engine. Of course this doesn’t mean that whenever you perform a search that humans immediately start searching the net for relevant material, but rather that contributors create their own results pages which are then returned when a specific search is performed. The idea verges on the ridiculous but does certainly hold some merit.

The obvious downside is that humans simply can’t keep up with the speed of the crawlers that the likes of Google use; the computers running these crawlers are online 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and can sift through entire websites in seconds, noting every last detail as they go. A human based search engine is always going to be comparatively out of date and limited in terms the amount of material that can be catalogued.

As I said, there are advantages but these can only really be appreciated by using it. Head to www.mahalo.com and type in a phrase that interests you – I remained topical and typed in ‘Gordon Brown’ since he appears to be hitting the headlines a fair bit at the moment. Mahalo immediately returned to me a quick overview on the man, a photo, twelve fast facts and a large number of vetted websites with useful information which have been split in to a number of useful categories such as ‘recent news’, ‘Brown Blair Changeover’ and ‘Controversies’. In contrast, if you type the same in to Google it immediately returns 13,000,000 results for pages which mention the words Gordon or Brown; of course the most relevant sites are at the top but it still is a little more cumbersome to navigate.

It is also fairly safe to say that humans are better equipped to work out what other humans will find interesting and as such you won’t find links to any pages that contain adult content, hate speech, spam, intrusive advertising, malicious material and even sites written with a poor grasp of the English language.

The amount of content is incredibly underwhelming; a search for Paignton yielded nothing and then more worrying even the entire county, Devon, came back with no results. In its defence, the site is only a year old and there is a lot of information to be catalogued so it will certainly take some time however even at this early stage such lack of scope is worrying. I fear that unless there is a serious amount of manpower that any existing results could also soon become stale and irrelevant.

Mahalo will never be able to compete with the likes of Google in terms of the sheer scope and depth of results but to compare the two against each other would be missing the point. Mahalo isn’t trying to be Google; it is a humanly edited search engine which is being built to provide relevant, human picked material for popular subjects. Google on the other hand is a vast machine driven database of over 100,000,000 websites which is added to every second of every day. They both have their purpose, and as such would hope that there is room for them both to peacefully co-exist.

Bluetooth is a fantastic technology and one of its many applications allows modern day mobile phone handsets to communicate wirelessly and exchange data with each other. Although the technology currently has a theoretical maximum range of up to 100m, it is worth noting that when built into a mobile phone the two devices realistically have to be in the same room to communicate with one another.

The applications for Bluetooth are numerous – one of the most useful and practical use for the technology is that handsfree headsets can communicate with your mobile phone without the need for cumbersome cables. Bluetooth can also be used to send files such as pictures, movies and MP3‘s to others that you know quickly, easily and free of charge.

Unfortunately, with most technology there is often a downside. In this instance, the problem with Bluetooth is that unless you turn it off when you’re not using it, then your phone will be continuously broadcasting itself and this can be a potential security vulnerability.

BlueJacking is a term used to refer to the sending of unsolicited messages over Bluetooth. The person sending the messages doesn’t have any control over your phone so it is technically harmless, however it can be quite confusing for the person on the receiving end when they receive anonymous messages. BlueJacking can also be used for unsolicited advertising; I was offered a box several weeks ago that when put in my window would send a message advertising my company to everyone who drove past with a bluetooth enabled phone. Of course, I declined but if such advertising technology catches on then using our phones on a day to day basis could become a lot more tiresome.

BlueSnarfing is in a different league to BlueJacking as it is usually used for malicious purposes. By taking advantage of vulnerabilities in susceptible handsets the BlueSnarfer can potentially gain access to confidential data within the phone such as the contact list, pictures, videos and text messages. There have even been instances where the BlueSnarfer can dial premium rate phone numbers without the consent or knowledge of the handset owner.

Another potential vulnerability of Bluetooth is that is can be used as a medium to transfer viruses. It is a rather strange state of the world when we have phones capable of contracting viruses but trust me, it does happen. Such viruses only tend to affect the handsets that have relatively advanced operating systems. Once infected these handsets then start propagating the virus by sending it out to every Bluetooth handset within range. These viruses are fairly easy to avoid because the handset does ask the user if they want to accept a file via Bluetooth before permission is given for the transfer to take place; typically only those uneducated in Bluetooth etiquette would accept such a file.

I don’t want to incite a knee-jerk reaction resulting in my readership abandoning Bluetooth – It is a good technology, is genuinely useful and the risks are relatively low. If you do have a Bluetooth enabled handset there are a couple of ways to minimise your risk and luckily these are extremely easy to implement.

If you don’t use Bluetooth then keep it switched turned off or your status set as ‘undiscoverable’ as this will result in no malicious users being able to locate your handset. If you do require or simply would like to keep Bluetooth enabled then make sure that if you are asked whether you would like to receive a file you weren’t expecting then reject it. Simple!

Of course both formats have their advantages and disadvantages which is what we’ll be discussing today by looking at both formats individually.

HD DVD

First up we have the HD DVD standard which the DVD Forum decided in November 2003 would be the official HD successor to the established DVD format. This new standard was jointly developed by a group of consumer electronics companies spearheaded by Toshiba.

The technology is based on a blue-violet 405nm laser which is much thinner than the traditional red laser used in DVD technology meaning that as much as 15Gb can be stored on a single HD DVD layer rather than the traditional 4.7Gb.

All HD DVD players are backwards compatible meaning that you can play standard DVD’s on your new player and there are already plenty of players out there as the technology has been established for a relatively long time. A potential downside to this technology is that no games consoles support this standard straight out the box although Xbox 360 owners do have the option to purchase a HD DVD upgrade for their machines separately from the main console.

Blu-Ray

On the flipside we have Blu-Ray which was only released last year by the Blu-Ray Disc Association which was founded as a contrast to the DVD Forum back in 2002. The group was founded by nine leading electronic companies including Philips, Pioneer, LG, Hitachi and Sony.

The technology is very similar to the HD DVD format in that a blue-violet 405nm laser is used to read the discs however technical differences mean that the two versions are incompatible with one another and so far a system that can read both types of disc hasn’t been released. Blu-Ray does have an advantage over HD-DVD in that it can support 25Gb per layer rather than just 15Gb but this does unfortunately result in an increase in the manufacturing costs resulting in a higher cost player and a higher cost per disc.

Whilst it’s not compulsory that Blu-Ray drives will read standard DVD’s it should be noted that so far the manufacturers have made a point of ensuring that their drives do read the old DVD format. Since this format hasn’t been around for long there are relatively few devices that offer Blu-Ray support. As interesting development which should dramatically increase the chance of Blu-Ray succeeding is that the Playstation 3 includes a Blu-Ray drive as standard so all games designed for this console will be stored on Blu-Ray discs.

Of course technical superiority doesn’t guarantee the success of a format; Betamax was superior to VHS in many ways and yet it failed due to lack of public and corporate support. As to which of the above formats succeeds will primary depend on those two factors as the selection and availability of titles is much more important to the average user than technical specifications such as transfer speeds or disc capacity.

There are of course people arguing on both sides of the fence both for and against WEEE which I will discuss this week in Click since my technologically savvy readers will quite clearly be affected by it in some way or another.

On the positive side this directive should result in several benefits to the environment by providing manufacturers with an incentive to design their equipment in a more environmentally conscious manner. Additionally the directive will provide the consumer with an avenue to return their waste equipment to the distributor free of charge rather than feeling that they should simply chuck it in the bin.

The downside is that many believe WEEE will result in prices of electronic and electrical prices rising as firms pass on these recycling costs on to the consumer. Many European countries force manufacturers to publish the recycling levy on the price tags of affected products which is something that the UK is not going to enforce although this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Pricing goods at a base price with a recycling cost added on top could be detrimental as once a visible fee is introduced it would most probably settle at a certain level. This could remove the incentive for producers to develop more efficient recycling processes and product designs that drive down the cost of recycling in an attempt to become more competitive.

Ultimately I don’t think that many will argue that WEEE is a bad idea because with every UK consumer producing around three tons of affected material in their lifetime it doesn’t take long to realise there is a finite amount of time this material can simply be transferred to landfill. The affected material is quite often hazardous, containing materials such as mercury, lead and cadmium which seep into the soil around the landfill site causing lasting environmental damage.

The price argument I believe is personally unfounded because in my opinion the cost of imposing a WEEE recycling directive doesn’t invent a new cost but rather transfers the existing cost of maintaining and creating landfills to a different initiative. The additional costs that are generated by passing the recycling costs along to the manufacturers should then theoretically then saved by the tax payer in reduced landfill costs. Of course this does assume that the cost savings for existing landfill construction and waste management are passed along which in an imperfect world is not guaranteed to happen.

Of course there are flaws in WEEE and one that springs to mind has been bought up by the Association of Manufacturers of Domestic Appliances who correctly states their members will have to pick up the bill of recycling products produced by companies that have now gone out of business. This new directive is by no means perfect but unfortunately it isn’t possible to enforce the responsibility in a completely fair way.

The WEEE directive was initially supposed to have been implemented under European Union plans back in 2005 but continual postponements by the UK mean that we are one of the last member states to adopt the proposals. A date of July 2007 has now been set by the government and those who feel that they may be affected by this new directive should head to the Department of Trade and Industry’s website (www.dti.gov.uk) to find out more.

Personally I welcome the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment initiative and believe that faced with the alternative environmental consequences most of you will join me.

This week we’ll take a look at a Linux Operating System which is designed to be installed either as a direct replacement or installed permanently alongside the Microsoft offering going by the name of Kubuntu.

Because Kubuntu is based on the KDE graphical interface those of you that tried out Slax last week will find this variant of Linux extremely easy to get to grips with. Where it differs is that Kubuntu isn’t designed from the ground up to be easily portable and as such it comes bundled with more software and is also easily installable on your hard drive.

By heading to www.kubuntu.org you can download the 700mb package free of charge. This software can then be put on to a bootable CD so that your new Operating System can be tried out before you choose to continue with the installation. The problem here is that Kubuntu runs pretty slowly off of a CD so don’t let this put you off putting it on to your hard disk.

The first time I used Kubuntu it set up and installed pretty much all my hardware (with the exception of my printer) automatically without any intervention and I was up and running on the Internet immediately. This is pretty impressive when you compare it to the half hour installation routine that is involved when setting up Windows for the first time.

Included with the default installation is a range of tools for your graphics, multimedia and Internet applications as well as the extremely capable OpenOffice package which is used as a direct, free replacement for Microsoft Office. I have reviewed OpenOffice for Windows in the past and found it to be quite a capable package consisting of a Presentation, Spreadsheet, Database and Calculator utilities as well as a Word Processor. Of course if you need to use an application that isn’t included as part of the default installation this can be easily done by using the inbuilt add/remove programs manager. A bonus of using a Linux based Operating System is that pretty much all the software that you’ll ever obtain will be legally free of charge.

As mentioned at the beginning of this article the User Interface is based on KDE which is fairly similar to that of Windows and so most users shouldn’t have a problem finding their way around the basic functions of the Operating System. The system is relatively easy to use and when installed on the hard disk the performance is impressive especially when compared with Windows on lower specification hardware.

I’m certainly not suggesting that Linux is the ideal solution for everybody as to do so would be hypocritical as I personally still use Windows in my day to day life however Kubuntu is certainly worth looking in to especially if you have a lower hardware specification or resent having to pay every couple of years for the latest version of Windows.

Pretty much any variant of Linux is completely free of charge so you can download and experiment to find out which one suits you the best however the two versions Slax and Kubuntu I have reviewed are certainly good places to start.