Former employees of Google have set up an alternative search engine called Cuil (pronounced 'cool').
Cuil claims that its technology moves away from the methods that have driven Google's success.
Instead of just looking at the number and quality of links to and from a webpage as Google's technology does, Cuil attempts to understand more about the information on a page and the terms people use to search. Results are displayed in a magazine format rather than a list.
Actually I tried Cuil yesterday and it is pretty Cuil (ok, I couldn't resist). The results also add little snippets from the relevant search, so you can go directly to the one you think might best be what you are looking for. Of course, the black background on the page is a bandwidth saver, but after years of seeing Google's white pages, a little adjustment is necessary.
