It's been a long time since google has made any real noticable changes to their search engine, so i was a little suspicious when two little icons appeared beside my search results allowing me to promote or demote search results... Had some malicious software found it's way to my computer?
A quick search eased my mind - no, it's not malicious software - instead it's a new feature Google has added called 'SearchWiki' that allows users to provide feedback to search results. After poking around a bit I've come to the conclusion that it's actually pretty neat. When you remove results that are not relevant, they won't re-appear on repeat searches. You can also see a list of all the results you have promoted or removed, which is handy if you accidentaly remove something you want back.
There is an article on timesonline.co.uk with more information on it, or just login to your google account and go search for something. There is more to it than just promoting and removing results, so it's worth a quick read.
Interestingly enough, Google also saw fit to release some newness to Gmail as well, in the form of themes.