More interesting articles and posts from the world of search engines and searching.

Google Chairman Eric Schmidt Weighs In On Patent Issues: They’re ‘Terrible’
TechCrunch: Schmidt suggested that the real problem with the current patent landscape in the U.S. has longstanding causes; in the early ’90s and early 2000s, he said, there were a lot of patents issued that “were very broad”, and that patent clerks are now spending a lot of time combing through and invalidating these older patents.

Browser Trends September 2011: Can Anyone Stop Chrome?
sitepoint: Chrome takes 23 percent of the browser market, Firefox 27, IE 42.

Google bloodbath continues, closes Aardvark
Phil Bradley: One of my favourite search engines is Aardvark, which was a social search engine. It was designed so that you could register, tell it what you know about, and what you’re interested in. Every now and then you’d get a little chat box popping up (mine was in Google chat), and it was from Aardvark, passing on a question from someone. See also GigaOM: Focusing on what works, Google shuts down Aardvark.

PDFs in Google search results
Google Webmaster Central: Google first started indexing PDF files in 2001 and currently has hundreds of millions of PDF files indexed. We’ve collected the most often-asked questions about PDF indexing; here are the answers.

Google touts daily deal on home page, a first
Reuters: Google Inc promoted a Groupon-like daily deals offer on its home page on Wednesday for the first time, a rare instance of the Internet giant using its prized online real estate for advertising.

Hulu Goes International With Japan Launch
Mashable: Japanese viewers will not have free access to Hulu.com, but rather its Hulu Plus service, in which content can be accessed on the web, via connected devices and video game consoles, and on smartphones and tablets.

How to search within the URL using Bing
Social Talent: For those of you familiar with boolean operators and advanced search modifers in the likes of Google and Bing you will know that the extremely useful field command inurl: does not work in Microsoft’s Bing search engine.

Google Warns Users of Possible Man-in-the-Middle Attacks
SE Watch: Google issued warnings of a possible man-in-the-middle attack against users attempting to access various Google services over a secured and encrypted HTTPS protocol. Google notes that the man-in-the-middle attacks appear to be “primarily located in Iran.”

Google gets a wake-up call on questionable ads
boston.com: Search for ‘ringtones’’ on Google, and you’ll get a few hundred million results – and about 10 small ads on the first page you see, including one that promises ‘Get Free Unlimited Ringtones Here. No Catch. No Hidden Charges or Fees.’’ But click on the ad, and it’s unlikely that you will find the ringtones that are free. Instead, all the colorful, blinking, compelling graphics lead you down slippery paths that quickly commit you to plans that charge your phone bill or credit card.

You Can Now Search Using Your Voice On Google Maps
Google Tutor: Seems like the Google Maps team is on a roll these days. After adding a weather layer on Google Maps (which I think is quite an useful feature), they have now added voice search. That means you just need to say it when you want to search something on Google Maps.