Google has announced a new version of its search engine which is said to be faster and more accurate than ever before.

The upgrade, which has been dubbed “caffeine” by insiders, was announced on Monday after the company opened up access to web developers.

Although little about the appearance of the new version has changed, engineers promised that radical changes behind the scenes would result in vast improvements for users.

The company said in a statement: “For the past several months a large team of Googlers has been working on a secret project: next-generation architecture for Google’s web search.”

Caffeine will allow Google to index the web at a higher pace – gathering more information and doing it faster.

Martin McNulty, director of search marketing specialist Trafficbroker wrote on his blog: “Google’s Caffeine is undoubtedly faster, almost twice as fast at times. It’s like a Google Gti.”

The company claims that significant changes to the way the system works will improve the experience for users – although it will also send shockwaves through marketers who try and optimise their results to appear higher up in Google’s index.

This new Google “caffeine” injection will increase the speed of your searches on your MacBooks and Sony Living Room PC available here at AJ Electronics.

MSN UK’s new video-on-demand service will let people watch some of their favourite TV programmes.

Microsoft’s MSN Video site is extending the length of some of the programmes it streams in the UK, having agreed content deals with BBC Worldwide and All3Media. MSN Video is planning to offer 350 hours of free content, supported by advertising.

There are over a dozen BBC series in the pilot, including The Young Ones, Mock The Week and That Mitchell And Webb Look.

Programmes will come in both WMV and Flash formats, to cater for both PC and Mac users and the streams are optimised for 512kbps broadband, to reach a wide audience.

Crossen says MSN UK reaches about half the UK’s broadband audience, second only to the BBC. “We’ve learned to understand the different audiences and their different requirement. We’re aiming to be one of the most popular services in VOD [video on demand].”

However, it seems unlikely that MSN Video will have the same impact as the BBC’s iPlayer.

Online-demand is becoming increasingly popular so MSN are right to join in, but have they left it too late??

Either way you can view MSN video on the Macbook or the Sony Living Room PC available here at AJ Electronics.

According to an Ofcom report the average broadband speed delivered in urban areas is 4.6 megabits per second compared to an average of 3.3 Mbps delivered in rural areas.

Ofcom have reported that over half of broadband users are on packages that promise speeds of “up to” 8 Mbps but research found that in practice they received an average of 4.1 Mbps.

They also found that no broadband customers were receiving the top download speeds advertised by the country’s largest internet service providers.

The highest speed that can be received is around 7.2 Mbps if they lived close to the telephone exchange through which their connection is routed.

In rural areas, households are further from the exchanges leading to a great number of internet “not spots”.

The six-month study involved more than 60 million broadband performance tests in 1,600 homes, and found the average broadband speed in the UK in April to be 4.1 Mbps.

According to the communication regulator Virgin Media’s next-generation fibre-optic broadband network achieved closest to the advertised speeds, while other suppliers, offered users much less than the “8 Mbps” speeds advertised.

Regardless of whether you get 4 Mbps or 8 Mbps broadband speed, your internet service will look fab on the desktops and Macbooks available here at AJ Electronics.

For more information please visit our website.

The new software, named the Google Chrome Operating System will be in netbooks for consumers in late 2010 and aims to make web applications easier to use.

Vice president of product management at Google said: “The operating systems that browsers run on were designed in an era where there was no web.

The Chrome OS is our attempt to re-think what operating systems should be”.

According to The Telegraph, Google are already working with a number of manufacturers to produce and distribute the system.

However, Microsoft Windows is currently installed in over 90% of people’s PCs. Google and Microsoft have often been in competition over the years in a variety of markets, from internet search to mobile software.

The success of this software will largely depend on whether Google can strike partnerships with PC makers, which currently offer Windows on most of their product lines.

If  Google is successful in its mission, then the Chrome OS will be available on most Desktop and laptop computers, and let’s face it if anyone can do it super search engine Google can!

AJ Electronics offer a range of PCs including the Apple Macbook and Sony Laptop, for more information about out products please visit the website.