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Facebook launched an early attack with its implication that some people would rather get information from their friends than from an anonymous formula. Twitter’s ability to parse its constant stream of updates introduced the concept of real-time search, a way of tapping into the latest chatter and conversation as it unfolds. Yelp helps people find restaurants, dry cleaners, and babysitters by crowdsourcing the ratings.

Microsoft purchased Farecast — a Web site that tracks airline fares over time and uses the data to predict when ticket prices will rise or fall — and incorporated its findings into Bing’s results. Microsoft made similar acquisitions in the health, reference, and shopping sectors

Google uses signals to ensure that only the most relevant tweets find their way into the real-time stream. “We look at what’s retweeted, how many people follow the person, and whether the tweet is organic or a bot,”

Worldwide, shifts in climate are strongly linked to human violence, researchers concluded after examining quantitative studies from the past 25 on climate and various forms of violence.

A global temperature rise of 2-degrees Celsius could increase the rate of intergroup conflicts, such as civil wars, by more than 50 percent in many parts of the world, the study's statistical analysis found.

studies that find that heat waves lead to more violent crime in U.S. cities, for example, indicate that humans are poorly equipped to deal with exposure to hotter temperatures