Flake is showing us all the new widgets that Y! has in pre-beta:

• better movie recommendations

• Y! search development network

• Y!Q- provides related search on the fly.  sort of similar to what we just saw from Bezos/A9 but seems less flexible.  Offers contextual clustgered search

• Y! ticker beta

• Y! desktop search

• Y! FareChase beta

An overview of Yahoo Research Labs:  30+ scientists/engineers working on R & D.  Focus on machine learning, collective intelligence, scientific computing, and text mining.  Try to build a hedged portfolio of activities focused on short, medium, and long-term projects.  Can see some of their research oline- only show what is not likely to become a product.

Tech Buzz Game: looking at how to use markets as predictors for future events (ie HSX, Terorism futures market, etc).  Y! and O'Reilly jointly introducing the Tech Buzz Game  TBG is an artificial market where users can predict future tech trends.  Relative value is determined by volume of search results.  Players need to time their market predictions to earn TBG play $$$ and prizes. 

Looks sort of cool.  Certainly could offer some interesting insight to what users seem most interested in re: rolling out future products/services.  I wonder how easy it will be to game this game…. 

Also showing dynamic pari-mutuel auctions.  Did not catch what they were but Flake assured us this Y! innovation will change auctions and gamblings.