Skip to main content

Bing vs. Google

Bing GoogleEven with an early release, Microsoft's new search engine, Bing, has been surprisingly bug-free (save those hovering mouse concerns and itchy IE 6 trigger) and is receiving rave reviews. Apple's Steve Wozniak is a fan. CNET's Rafe Needleman said, "the new engine won me over." And the Motley Fool folks have even gone on to declare Bing, "the first serious threat to Google's long-dominant search franchise."

While I think it's a bit early to assess Bing's impact on Google, I can say that, as a user, I've been impressed by site's functionality. I am less than satisfied, however, with their nuclear-related search results. (Solipsism alert!) A Google search for "nuclear energy" has NEI in the first position - ahead of Wikipedia - on the search engine results page (SERP). On Bing? NEI is #2. And a search for "nuclear power" results in even more significant position changes: NEI is second on Google and in eighth place on Bing.

At least NEI still tops that other NEI on both Bing and Google. So...there's that.

Comments

gunter said…
Funny you should mention...

Bing is the unmentioned search engine that is subject this morning's CNN story and a recent letter to Department of Homeland Security re: websites that are giving too much detail to their high resolution photos of nuclear power stations now publicly available free on the internet.

CNN 06/05/2009 > http://amfix.blogs.cnn.com/2009/06/05/critics-online-imagery-of-nuclear-plants-too-explicit/#more-3194 <

The interviewed analyst from Rand Corp agrees that this is way too much detail available for virtual reconnaissance in Wi-Fi cafes practically anywhere in the world.

You can surveil site security, pace off distances between target sets and set up 3D table top exercises for practice from remote and anonymous locations perhaps thousands of miles away.

Like the virtual images of the US Capitol, these "bird's eye" views need to be blurred out.

NSIR is supposedly relooking at it now. But we won't be surprised if NRC agrees with the guy interviewed from AmerGen's TMI.

Popular posts from this blog

Activists' Claims Distort Facts about Advanced Reactor Design

Below is from our rapid response team . Yesterday, regional anti-nuclear organizations asked federal nuclear energy regulators to launch an investigation into what it claims are “newly identified flaws” in Westinghouse’s advanced reactor design, the AP1000. During a teleconference releasing a report on the subject, participants urged the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to suspend license reviews of proposed AP1000 reactors. In its news release, even the groups making these allegations provide conflicting information on its findings. In one instance, the groups cite “dozens of corrosion holes” at reactor vessels and in another says that eight holes have been documented. In all cases, there is another containment mechanism that would provide a barrier to radiation release. Below, we examine why these claims are unwarranted and why the AP1000 design certification process should continue as designated by the NRC. Myth: In the AP1000 reactor design, the gap between the shield bu...

How many nuclear plants does it take to meet the world's energy needs?

Several weeks ago Joshua Pearce at Clarion University in Pennsylvania released a study titled “ Thermodynamic limitations to nuclear energy deployment as a greenhouse gas mitigation technology .” In the study he stated... nuclear energy production would have to increase by 10.5% per year from 2010 to 2050 to both replace fossil-fuel-energy use and meet the future energy demands. This line, of course, made the headlines and has been picked up by several outlets and blogs . When looking into his calculations for this statement, he made one assumption error that overstated the above sentence by nearly a factor of three. Page 121, Section 4.1 of the study states: Richard Smalley pointed out that in 2004, the global economy consumed the equivalent of 220 million barrels of oil per day, which converted into electricity terms is the equivalent of 14.5 TeraWatts (TW), or 14,500,000 MegaWatts (MW) (2005). … With a nuclear plant having about 1000 MW (1 GW) of capacity, we would need 14,500...

What Happens During a Refueling Outage?

You may have noticed over the past few weeks that a number of nuclear plants are shut down for refueling outages or are resuming operations after just returning from one. This type of routine outage usually occurs in the spring or fall when electricity demand is low so that nuclear reactors can replace about one-third of the spent fuel rods with new fuel and conduct other routine maintenance and repairs at the plant. To get a better sense of how refueling works at a nuclear energy facility, I spoke with Marcus Nichol, NEI’s senior project manager for used fuel storage and transportation, and asked him to explain the basics. Why does a nuclear plant need to replace one-third of its fuel? Nichol: The main purpose of a refueling outage is to replace older fuel that is depleted—meaning it can no longer efficiently produce energy from nuclear fission reactions—with new fuel. This “used fuel” has typically been used in the reactor for four-and-a-half to six years before it is pe...