How Search Engines Work - Video Blog

Search engines have two major functions - crawling & building an index, and providing answers by calculating relevancy & serving results.

Imagine the World Wide Web as a network of stops in a big city subway system.

Each stop is its own unique document (usually a web page, but sometimes a PDF, JPG or other file). The search engines need a way to “crawl” the entire city and find all the stops along the way, so they use the best path available – links.

1. Crawling and IndexingCrawling and indexing the billions of documents, pages, files, news, videos and media on the world wide web.
2. Providing Answers Providing answers to user queries, most frequently through lists of relevant pages, through retrieval and rankings.

“The link structure of the web serves to bind all of the pages together.”

Through links, search engines’ automated robots, called “crawlers,” or “spiders” can reach the many billions of interconnected documents.
Once the engines find these pages, they next decipher the code from them and store selected pieces in massive hard drives, to be recalled later when needed for a search query. To accomplish the monumental task of holding billions of pages that can be accessed in a fraction of a second, the search engines have constructed datacenters all over the world.
These monstrous storage facilities hold thousands of machines processing large quantities of information. After all, when a person performs a search at any of the major engines, they demand results instantaneously – even a 1 or 2 second delay can cause dissatisfaction, so the engines work hard to provide answers as fast as possible.

Search engines are answer machines. When a person looks for something online, it requires the search engines to scour their corpus of billions of documents and do two things – first, return only those results that are relevant or useful to the searcher’s query, and second, rank those results in order of perceived usefulness. It is both “relevance” and “importance” that the process of SEO is meant to influence.

To a search engine, relevance means more than simply finding a page with the right words. In the early days of the web, search engines didn’t go much further than this simplistic step, and their results suffered as a consequence. Thus, through evolution, smart engineers at the engines devised better ways to find valuable results that searchers would appreciate and enjoy. Today, 100s of factors influence relevance, many of which we’ll discuss throughout this guide.

How Do Search Engines Determine Importance?

Currently, the major engines typically interpret importance as popularity – the more popular a site, page or document, the more valuable the information contained therein must be. This assumption has proven fairly successful in practice, as the engines have continued to increase users’ satisfaction by using metrics that interpret popularity.

Popularity and relevance aren’t determined manually. Instead, the engines craft careful, mathematical equations – algorithms – to sort the wheat from the chaff and to then rank the wheat in order of tastiness (or however it is that farmers determine wheat’s value).

These algorithms are often comprised of hundreds of components. In the search marketing field, we often refer to them as “ranking factors” Moz crafted a resource specifically on this subject – Search Engine Ranking Factors.

Source: Moz.com

How Regenerative Braking System Saves You Gas - Video Blog

Batteries aren't the only technology mankind has invented to store electricity, and Mazda has perfected a solution to the energy storage needs of electrified vehicles with a new system it's calling i-ELOOP. The i-ELOOP system will be featured in the first production passenger vehicle with recaptured energy from regenerative braking stored in a capacitor. The rest of the bits and pieces behind the tech include a variable voltage alternator and a DC/DC converter that sends energy otherwise lost to heat in the brakes at up to 25 volts to the Electric Double Layer Capacitor, where it's stored for later use. There's no electric motor in the i-ELOOP drivetrain, so the capacitor releases its energy to recharge the car's battery and to help power electric components like the heating and air conditioning systems. All in, Mazda promises fuel savings of up to 10 percent over cars not equipped with regenerative braking. Read all about it in the press release below: Source: Mazda USA Press Release Mazda 'i-ELOOP' World's First Capacitor-Based Regenerative Braking System for Passenger Vehicles Hiroshima, Japan 25 November 2011. Mazda Motor Corporation has developed the world's first passenger vehicle regenerative braking system that uses a capacitor. The groundbreaking system, which Mazda calls 'i-ELOOP', will begin to appear in Mazda's vehicles in 2012. In real-world driving conditions with frequent acceleration and braking, 'i- ELOOP' improves fuel economy by approximately 10 percent. Mazda's regenerative braking system is unique because it uses a capacitor, which is an electrical component that temporarily stores large volumes of electricity. Compared to batteries, capacitors can be charged and discharged rapidly and are resistant to deterioration through prolonged use. 'i-ELOOP' efficiently converts the vehicle's kinetic energy into electricity as it decelerates, and uses the electricity to power the climate control, audio system and numerous other electrical components. Regenerative braking systems are growing in popularity as a fuel saving technology. They use an electric motor or alternator to generate electricity as the vehicle decelerates, thereby recovering a portion of the vehicle's kinetic energy. Regenerative braking systems in hybrid vehicles generally use a large electric motor and dedicated battery. Mazda examined automobile accelerating and decelerating mechanisms, and developed a highly efficient regenerative braking system that rapidly recovers a large amount of electricity every time the vehicle decelerates. Unlike hybrids, Mazda's system also avoids the need for a dedicated electric motor and battery. 'i-ELOOP' features a new 12-25V variable voltage alternator, a low-resistance electric double layer capacitor and a DC/DC converter. 'i-ELOOP' starts to recover kinetic energy the moment the driver lifts off the accelerator pedal and the vehicle begins to decelerate. The variable voltage alternator generates electricity at up to 25V for maximum efficiency before sending it to the Electric Double Layer Capacitor (EDLC) for storage. The capacitor, which has been specially developed for use in a vehicle, can be fully charged in seconds. The DC/DC converter steps down the electricity from 25V to 12V before it is distributed directly to the vehicle's electrical components. The system also charges the vehicle battery as necessary. 'i-ELOOP' operates whenever the vehicle decelerates, reducing the need for the engine to burn extra fuel to generate electricity. As a result, in "stop-and-go" driving conditions, fuel economy improves by approximately 10 percent. The name 'i-ELOOP' is an adaptation of "Intelligent Energy Loop" and represents Mazda's intention to efficiently cycle energy in an intelligent way. 'i-ELOOP' also works in conjunction with Mazda's unique 'i-stop' idling stop technology to extend the period that the engine can be shut off. Mazda is working to maximize the efficiency of internal combustion engine vehicles with its groundbreaking SKYACTIV TECHNOLOGY. By combining this with i-stop, i-ELOOP and other electric devices that enhance fuel economy by eliminating unnecessary fuel consumption, Mazda is striving to deliver vehicles with excellent environmental performance as well as a Zoom-Zoom ride to all its customers. At the 42nd Tokyo Motor Show, Mazda will debut the i-ELOOP system in the TAKERI concept car, a next generation mid-sized sedan that features SKYACTIV TECHNOLOGY and KODO – Soul of Motion design theme..
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How Do They Make Ceramic Breaks? - Video Blog

Most of us take our break pads for granted and don't think of them until we hear them squeak. It actually takes a lot of science and engineering to safely stop your vehicle.

Video Produced By: The Science Channel
There's a lot more to effectively using your car's braking system then simply stomping on the pedal when a squirrel darts out in front of you. The braking systems of cars, trucks and motorcycles are made up of a number of parts that translate the driver's actions into physical force that stops the car. One of those brake parts is your vehicle's brake pads.
Brake pads are a key brake part because they are the component that contacts and applies pressure and friction to a vehicle's brake rotors -- those flat, shiny discs that you can sometimes see just behind the wheels of some vehicles. The pressure and friction applied to the brake rotor is what slows and stops the wheel. Once the wheels stop turning, the vehicle stops moving, too. Though the role of brake pads as braking parts is pretty simple, the brake pads themselves are anything but.
B­ecause of how fast a vehicle's wheels rotate and how much a typical car or truck weighs, brake pads undergo extreme stress every time you slow down or come to a stop. Think about it: Would you want to grab and hold on to a heavy metal disc that was spinning really fast? Imagine slowly squeezing that disc until the vehicle rolls to a halt -- it's a thankless job, but brake pads do it repeatedly for thousands and thousands of miles without complaint.

Source: How Stuff Works

Compiled By: Josh Martin

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