At SES London 2010 , there was an unconventional session held at the bar of the Hilton London Islington Hotel entitled "Black Hat/White Hat Unconferenced." As you can see from the photo below, more than 200 people crammed into a space that could comfortably accommodate about 20. Click to read the rest of this post.

Google is expanding Google Maps into 30 African countries where it was not previously available. "One of the things we spend a lot of time thinking about at Google is how we can make the world's information more accessible and useful to people all over the globe," Google says . "This includes providing rich local geographic data because, after all, a huge number of search queries have a geographic component.

And all this, only to find out there was a missing ingredient the whole time ;) Of course, if Dilbert had a text version of the cartoon and perhaps a more relevant alt tag in his embed code that would help too.

Here are some Chinese internet memes, as presented by More Suzhou magazine (February/ March 2010 issue): What, brother, is smoking, is not a cigarette, but loneliness! (...) gÄ" chMu de bú shì yn, shì jì mò In July of 2009, someone posted a picture of a guy eating a bowl of noodles on a Baidu forum, and titled it, "What, brother, is eating, isn't noodles, but loneliness!" After that, it ran out of control. People began to use this sentence on many other occasions,

February has been quite the month for Google Creep, that slow, steady spread of Google's sphere of influence across all business sectors that directly or indirectly touch on the Web. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has granted Google the right to buy and resell electricity, fulfilling Google's December request. At a general level, Google is seeking to keep its large data centers fed with power.

by Mike Krumboltz A couple of animals inspired big searches this past week. At the annual Westminster Dog Show , a Scottish terrier named Sadie won the coveted "Best in Show" award, but not before her moment of glory was interrupted by protesters. Meanwhile, down in Atlanta, an escaped zebra named Lima took an extended tour of town before being caught by befuddled authorities. Amazingly, this wasn't the first time the striped bandit went AWOL.

What can search data tell you about people? How can you use search data to project the commercial success of movies, video games, and other products? These are just a few of the challenges from the microeconomics and social systems area of the 2010 Key Scientific Challenges Program that we announced on Jan. 27 this year. The Key Scientific Challenges program is a competition that encourages top graduate students globally to collaborate with Yahoo!

by Claudine Zap Thanks to the magic of video games, even if you are the furthest thing from a rock star, a golf pro, or, say, an Olympian, you can still play one from the comfort of your living room. And while catching air on the halfpipe or racing on downhill skiis may grab the more adventurous types, the newly cool sport of curling has caught the imagination of Winter Olympics viewers. (You know,

Judy Chang Hi all, this is Judy Chang from PayPal's nonprofit team. This Monday, I will be participating in a great panel at the anniversary event for Gravity Summit. Held on the UCLA campus, the panel "Social Media Meets Social Good" will discuss how social media has helped impact awareness and .