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Google has lifted the lid on its updated search engine, which developers have nicknamed "Caffeine".
Although still in the testing phase, the firm says it is the "first step in improving the speed, accuracy and comprehensiveness of search results".
The new engine will replace Google's current one after tests are complete.
Martin McNulty of search marketing specialist Trafficbroker said the upgrade threatened to put Microsoft's new engine, Bing, "in the shade".
"Google have let Caffeine quietly slip out. It talked about vertical specific searches while quietly doubling the speed and starts introducing real-time results and news feeds," he said.
"Bing was launched with a massive media budget.
"Trouble is, Bing presents itself as an alternative to something that users are still - for now - happy with," he added. source: bbc.com

The speaker of Iran's parliament has dismissed claims by a defeated presidential candidate that opposition protesters were raped in detention.
"Based on parliament's investigations, detainees have not been raped or sexually abused in Iran's Kahrizak and Evin prisons," Ali Larijani said.
"Such claims are totally baseless," state television quoted him as saying.
Opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi called on Sunday for an inquiry into alleged rapes of male and female detainees.
In a letter to former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, now the head of a powerful adjudicating body, Mr Karroubi said some of the detainees had been seriously injured.
On Tuesday, Iran's authorities said 4,000 people had been detained during the mass protests that broke out in the wake of the 12 June presidential poll, which the opposition says was rigged.
The number was much higher than previous figures, although the authorities said 3,700 of them had been released within a few days of arrest.
Opposition leaders say 69 protesters died in the post-election violence - more than double the official figure of about 30 fatalities.
The conditions under which detained protesters have been held has been controversial, with damaging claims forcing authorities to act.
The Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamanei, closed the notorious Kahrizak detention centre saying it had failed to "preserve the detainees' rights".
Police officials have admitted that some of those held since June might have been tortured.
Both the Iranian parliament and judiciary have established committees to investigate the post-election unrest and the government's response.source: bbc.com

PARIS, France (CNN) -- Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece the "Mona Lisa" was attacked with a mug earlier this month, but the world's most famous painting -- protected by thick glass -- emerged with its enigmatic smile undimmed.
The "Mona Lisa" sits behind bulletproof glass in the Louvre gallery.
French police say a woman "not in her senses" lobbed the mug at the 500-year-old painting, which hangs in the Louvre gallery in Paris.
The woman, a tourist, was later transferred from police custody to a psychiatric unit, a police spokesman told CNN. The spokesman declined to be identified, and did not say where the woman was from.
The "Mona Lisa," considered one of the world's most valuable paintings, sits behind bulletproof glass in a special wing of the Louvre, attracting visitors in their millions.
The Italian Renaissance masterpiece, which depicts a dark-haired young woman with an aloof facial expression, has been the target of attacks in the past.
In 1956 the artwork was damaged when acid was thrown at it. A rock was also thrown in a separate incident in the same year. source: cnn.com

Costa Rican President Oscar Arias has announced that he has swine flu.
"Apart from the fever and a sore throat, I feel well and in good shape to carry out my work by telecommuting," the 68-year-old said in a statement.
The president is receiving medical care at his residence and is expected to remain there for a week, his brother and chief of staff Rodrigo Arias said.
He had been mediating talks on the Honduran crisis, after President Manuel Zelaya was toppled in a coup in June.
But the negotiations broke down two weeks ago, and Mr Arias's brief absence is not expected to affect the outcome.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner, who suffers from chronic asthma, is the first head of state known to have contracted the H1N1 influenza virus.
He was diagnosed with a mild case of swine flu on Tuesday after having flu-like symptoms for some days.
More than 20 people in Costa Rica have died as a result of the swine flu outbreak, which was declared a pandemic on 11 June by the World Health Organization.
source: bbc.com

A U.S. soldier arrested in connection with the killing of a Mexican drug cartel member in El Paso, Texas, allegedly worked as a hit man, court records say.
Michael Jackson Apodaca, 18, is a soldier based at Fort Bliss.
1 of 3 Pfc. Michael Jackson Apodaca, 18, was one of three men arrested Monday in connection with the shooting death of the mid-level drug cartel member who also worked as an informant for the United States, according to a complaint affidavit.
Police identified the other suspects as Ruben Rodriguez Dorado, 30, and Christopher Andrew Duran, 17.
The three men each face one count of capital murder, El Paso police said.
The victim, Jose Daniel Gonzalez Galeana, was shot multiple times in front of his home on May 15. Duran and Rodriguez told police that Apodaca was paid to be the shooter, the affidavit states. Cell phone records, witness statements and El Paso Police detectives corroborated this, according to the document.
Orders to kill Gonzalez came from the same cartel he worked for, the affidavit said. Gonzalez had become a target because the cartel believed he was leaking information to authorities, the document said.source: cnn.com

US President Barack Obama has accused some opponents of his healthcare reform proposals of trying to "scare the heck" out of people.
Anti-reform campaigners had created "bogeymen out there that just aren't real", he said at a town-hall style meeting in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
Passing a healthcare reform bill is Mr Obama's top domestic priority for 2009.
But in recent weeks, opponents of reform have been making serious accusations about his proposals.
The former Republican vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, said last week that the president wanted to set up "death panels" of government officials with the power to determine whether disabled or elderly Americans are "worthy of healthcare".
In fact, under proposals drawn up by the US House of Representatives, the government would pay for elderly Americans to receive voluntary consultations with doctors to discuss their end-of-life care.
"The rumour that's been circulating a lot lately is this idea that somehow the House of Representatives voted for death panels that will basically pull the plug on Grandma because we've decided that its too expensive to let her live anymore," said Mr Obama.
"Somehow, it has gotten spun into this idea of death panels. I am not in favour of that, I want to clear the air here." source: bbc.com

The number of people out of work in the UK has risen to its highest level since 1995, official figures have shown.
Unemployment increased by 220,000 to 2,435,000 in the three months to June, taking the jobless rate to 7.8%.
Claims for unemployment benefit grew to its worst level in 12 years, increasing by 24,900 from June to 1.58 million.
Average earnings, excluding bonuses, grew at their slowest rate since records began in 2001, the Office for National Statistics said.

Earnings rose at an annual rate of 2.5% in the three months to June - though those in manufacturing only averaged pay increases of 1.1%, while the public sector saw an average rise of 3.7%.
The figures come as the Bank of England's latest quarterly inflation report warned that the UK economy still had some way to go before it recovered from the effects of the financial crisis.
The British Chambers of Commerce warned that unemployment was likely to continue rising at a rapid pace, even if the economy started growing again, and could exceed three million.
And the Institute of Directors said that almost a million people were working part-time because they could not find a full-time job, meaning the impact of the recession on employment was "even greater than the headline figures suggest".
source: bbc.com

LONDON, England (CNN) -- A Russian-crewed cargo ship has vanished after being involved in what appears to be an unprecedented pirate incident in European waters.
The Arctic Sea, carrying a 6,500-tonne cargo of timber from Finland to Algeria, was last heard of two weeks ago when it passed through the English Channel, one of the world's busiest shipping lanes.
Mark Clark of the British Maritime and Coastguard Agency said the ship crewed by 15 Russians made radio contact on July 28, but reported nothing untoward.
He said the agency was belatedly asked by Interpol on August 3 to look out for the Arctic Sea because it has been involved in a hijacking incident off the coast of Sweden on July 24.
The ship, which embarked from Jakobstad in Finland, had been due to arrive un Bejaia in northern Algeria on August 4.
While piracy levels have recently increased off the coast of East Africa, incidents in European waters are unheard of, according to UK maritime experts.
"Attacks on ships are extremely rare, basically they don't happen," said Jeremy Harrison of the British Chamber of Shipping.
Approximately 400 ships pass daily through the Dover Strait -- the narrowest stretch of the English Channel -- and all are required to check in with either British of French coastguards.
The Arctic Sea is Maltese-flagged and Latvian-owned but operated by Finnish firm Solchart Management. Its cargo of sawn timber is owned by another Finnish company, Stora Enso. source: cnn.com

Police hunting the suspected mastermind of Indonesia's hotel bombings, Noordin Mohammed Top, have said a man shot dead in a weekend raid was not him.
DNA tests identified the man as one of Noordin's accomplices in the attacks on the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in Jakarta on 17 July, police said.
Earlier reports had suggested the dead man was Malaysian-born Noordin.
His is one of Asia's most wanted men, and has been blamed for a string of attacks including the 2002 Bali blasts.
The BBC's Rebecca Henschke, in Jakarta, says police are trying to play down their disappointment, but the news that Noordin was not killed will be a major blow for them.
They have been hunting him for seven years. source: bbc.com

A woman of 29 was raped by a man who offered her free accommodation through a website aimed at helping travellers, a court has heard.
She arranged to stay with Abdelali Nachet through CouchSurfing.com after using the site to stay with strangers across Europe without any problems.
But her brief stay in Leeds turned into a nightmare, it was alleged.
Nachet, 34, took her back to his flat, threatened to kill her and raped her twice during a 'degrading and humiliating' ordeal that lasted throughout the night.
Prosecutor Simon Phillips said the woman tried to escape but tripped up in the hall and Nachet told her: 'If you try to run away I will kill you and after that I will kill myself.'
He added: 'She felt in very real and genuine fear that she was at risk of being murdered by this defendant.
'She submitted, she never consented. He was aware of this but was persistent. He went on and on for a long time.'
The woman from Hong Kong had recently completed a trip to Italy and Spain using the same worldwide hospitality website which enables travellers to fix up free accommodation with volunteers offering themselves as hosts.
She had also used it in France and had stayed with another single man in Birmingham without incident. source: daily mail.com
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1205794/Rape-horror-tourist-used-couchsurfing-website-aimed-travellers.html#ixzz0NxzTIIOQ

LONDON, England (CNN) -- As the defenders of a besieged Bosnian town prepared to retreat, the prisoners of war held captive in the local jail feared the worst.
An ICRC aid vehicle in Colombia in 1998. The ICRC says the conventions make its work in war zones possible.
1 of 2 more photos » "The prisoners were saying, 'If the town falls they will shoot us before they leave,'" recalls Charlotte Lindsey, a Red Cross field worker in the Balkans during the break-up of the former Yugoslavia. "We went to the prison authorities and we said, "Look, you cannot let this happen. You are responsible for these prisoners."
Forty-eight hours later, after the town had been captured, Lindsey and her Red Cross colleagues returned to find the prison empty. But the prisoners had all been found alive and liberated by the incoming army.
"We interviewed some of the prisoners and they said the director of the prison and his deputy had stood in front of them to protect them," says Lindsey, now deputy director of communication for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). "They told us: 'They wanted to kill us but they wouldn't let it happen.'"
Even 15 years later, Lindsey is unable to reveal specific details about where the 1994 incident took place or the identities of the protagonists because of the ICRC's strict policy of confidentiality and neutrality.
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But for her the story serves to illustrate the lasting impact of the Geneva Conventions -- the set of universally ratified "rules of war" governing the conduct of armed forces and protecting non-combatants -- even in the heat of one of the most brutal and ethnically charged conflicts of recent decades.
"On a daily basis, living in a war zone, you see examples of the conventions being applied. Every time a soldier is captured and moved to a prison, or a wounded soldier is collected by an ambulance, that is an application of the Geneva Conventions," Lindsey told CNN ahead of Wednesday's 60th anniversary of the signing of the conventions.source: cnn.com

Russia is to spend almost $500m (£300m) next year reinforcing its military bases in Georgia's breakaway region of Abkhazia, the prime minister says.
Vladimir Putin's announcement came as he was due to visit Abkhazia for talks.
He said Russia was committed to defending and financing the small strip of land in Georgia's north-west corner.
Moscow officially recognised the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia following the war a year ago between Russia and Georgia.
Apart from Russia only Nicaragua recognised the regions' independence in the conflict's aftermath; both areas are still widely held to remain part of Georgia.
Russian citizenship
Mr Putin said Russia would deploy more forces in Abkhazia and build a "modern border-guard system" to guarantee the security of the two breakaway regions.
"All this will cost about 15-16bn rubles [$463m; £280m]," he was quoted as saying by AFP news agency ahead of Wednesday's visit.
Moscow is rapidly establishing facts on the ground in Abkhazia following last year's war, says the BBC's Richard Galpin in the region's main city, Sukhumi.
The bulk of the money will be spent on military bases and strengthening the border between Abkhazia and Georgia, says our correspondent. source: bbc.com

About 700 people missing in southern Taiwan after Typhoon Morakot have been found alive, army officials say.
People from several villages are said to have made it to higher ground before mud and rock engulfed their homes.
Among the survivors found by rescue teams are 200 from Hsiaolin village, reports the Taiwan Central News Agency.
However, despite frantic rescue efforts in Hsiaolin and elsewhere since the weekend, hundreds of people are still missing, feared buried under the mud.
Military helicopters have been ferrying villagers out of communities cut off by the storms and floods after roads and bridges were washed away.
"We have found around 700 people alive in three villages last night and 26 more this morning. We are deploying 25 helicopters to evacuate them," said Maj Gen Richard Hu, a senior official in the rescue effort.
The typhoon struck Taiwan at the weekend, killing at least 60 people and causing the worst flooding in 50 years.
'Save my village'
The BBC's Cindy Sui at Chishan in rural southern Taiwan, the centre of the rescue effort, says the authorities fear that hundreds more people could still be trapped.
In Hsiaolin alone, rescue workers said about 100 were unaccounted for as of Tuesday and thought possibly to have been buried alive.
Our correspondent says family members from surrounding areas have been converging on Hsiaolin, demanding that helicopters be sent to their villages too.
Some are carrying signs that read, "Save my village".
The search for survivors has been a slow process as the only way in and out of the villages is by helicopter, our correspondent adds. source: bbc.com