Earth's value: 3,000 trillion pounds

A scientist has thought up of a formula to calculate the worth of planet Earth and has valued it at 3,000 trillion pounds.

Astrophysicist Greg Laughlin came up with the figure by calculating the sum of the planet's age, size, temperature, mass and other vital statistics -- and Earth came out as the most expensive.

Mars was only valued at 10,000 pounds, while Venus is said to be worth less than a penny. There are about 1,235 other planets in existence, whose inhospitable climes ruled out a higher price tag.

Laughlin from the University of California in the US used his equation to evaluate the discoveries made by NASA's 600 million pounds Kepler spacecraft, a newspaper reported.

The planet-hunting spacecraft went into orbit two years ago and a year later Laughlin decided to create price tags for the terrestrial planets that Keplar was set to discover, according to a California University statement.

At the time, the exoplanet Gilese 581 c was considered the most Earth-like world known to scientists, but the equation only valued it at 100 pounds, while KOI 326.01 is said to be worth 150,000 pounds.

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Google Revamps to Fight Cheaters

Google Inc., long considered the gold standard of Internet search, is changing the secret formula it uses to rank Web pages as it struggles to combat websites that have been able to game its system.

The Internet giant, which handles nearly two-thirds of the world's Web searches, has been under fire recently over the quality of its results. Google said it changed its mathematical formula late Thursday in order to better weed out "low-quality" sites that offer users little value. Some such sites offer just enough content to appear in search results and lure users to pages loaded with advertisements.

Google generates billions of dollars from advertising linked to its search engine, whose influence as a front door to the world's online content and commerce continues to grow by the year. Google's power over the fortunes of so many other companies has made it a target of competitor complaints. It has also faced government investigations, including scrutiny by regulators in the U.S. and Europe.

The Silicon Valley company built its business on the strength of algorithms that yield speedy results. The company constantly refines those formulas, and sometimes takes manual action to penalize companies that it believes use tricks to artificially rise in search rankings. In recent weeks, it has cracked down on retailers J.C. Penney Co. and Overstock.com Inc.

Last month, Google acknowledged it "can and should do better" to beat back sites that "copy content from other websites" or provide information that is "just not very useful" but are ranked highly anyway.

"I've never seen Google be attacked on the relevancy of their results the way they have these past couple of months," said Danny Sullivan, editor of a widely read blog about the field called Search Engine Land.
The debate about Google's results was sparked by a recent blog post by Vivek Wadhwa, a former technology executive and a visiting scholar at the University of California-Berkeley. He wrote that his students had trouble finding basic information about the founders of start-up companies on Google.

Game fans snap up Nintendo's 3DS at Japan launch

Game fans hit Japanese stores early on Saturday to be among the first to get their hands on Nintendo's new 3D-capable game player, but the gadget's sales may be squeezed in the longer term by competition from smartphones and tablets.

The 3DS, set to launch in the United States and Europe in a month, has sparked excitement as the first games device to offer glasses-free 3D gaming, and it has the advantage of launching 10 months ahead of Sony's rival Next Generation Portable.

Nintendo, based in Japan's ancient former capital of Kyoto, is sticking to a tried and trusted formula -- a dedicated portable games device with software available on cartridges that cost $30 or more.

That worked for the original DS, launched in 2004, which appealed across the board from school children to the elderly. But casual gamers now have the option of free or inexpensive games available on mobile devices from Apple (AAPL.O) iPhone or based on Google's Android operating system.

Rival Sony Corp, whose PlayStation Portable (PSP) never caught up with the DS, has gone head-to-head with these upstarts, announcing last month it would make some games available on other companies' Android-based devices and offer a new development system for casual games, a strategy with its own risks.

Verizon Wireless iPhone sales mostly online

Verizon Wireless sold more iPhones online than in stores, its topexecutive told Reuters, disputing a concern that the sparse crowds that greetedthe store launch of the Apple Inc device signaled low sales.

ChiefExecutive Daniel Mead said in an interview at the company's New Jerseyheadquarters that demand for the phone has been at record levels since VerizonWireless began selling the phone on its website Feb. 3.

Mead toldReuters that the lack of long lines outside Verizon Wireless stores on Feb. 10,the day it hit store shelves, could be attributed to the fact that about 60 percent of the company's iPhone sales were made on its website.

Theexecutive said the device had helped substantially increase the rate at whichcustomers switched to Verizon Wireless from all its other U.S.rivals.

At peak sales times Mead said iPhone brought 100 times moreorders than usual to its website but he did not give specificnumbers.

Mead reaffirmed the company's guidance that it would sell asmany as 11 million iPhones in 2011. He said the company would give specificiPhone sales figures when it reports first-quarter earnings.

"This isthe largest retail launch we've seen," the executive said. "When I look over thelast three weeks or so it (sold) much more than we've seen in any previousdevice."

Google targets 'content farms' in search tune-up

Google Inc made substantial changes to its search engine in a direct attack on companies that churn out low-quality stories and videos.

The results of the improvements to Google's algorithms used to list search rankings over the past few days affected nearly 12 per cent of searches, Google said in a blog post on Thursday.

Google launched the clean-up after users urged stronger action against so-called content farms, which rely on armies of low-paid freelancers to crank out stories and videos designed to appear higher on search engine results.

"This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites -- sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful," Google fellow Amit Singhal and principal engineer Matt Cutts wrote in the blog post.

"At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on."

While Google did not cite companies it regards as content farms, the tag is often pinned to Demand Media, Yahoo Inc's Associated Content, and AOL's Seed, which publish stories on such topics as "how to make a paper lantern" or "five ways to sooth dry skin."