Say you’re buying a dog. You know the breed you want; you can picture it in your head. But what was the name? A bull terrier? A pit bull? A bull mastiff?

Or what if you’re in the market for a new camera? You saw a friend with a credit-card-thin model at a party last weekend. But was that a Canon? A Nikon? A brand you’ve never heard of?

If you’re like many people, you’d turn to the Internet for answers. But you type in “dog breeds” or “digital cameras” into Google and punch enter, and a big list of blue links comes up. You don’t see the dog you want. You don’t find the camera, either — at least not quickly.

Such quandaries are the driving force behind Bing’s new “visual search” function, which lets Web users troll through image catalogues instead of Web pages when they know what something looks like but can’t put their finger on the name.

The examples are also evidence that the search engine market, once dominated by simple rectangular search bars and the lists of Web pages that follow, is diversifying. People who once were happy with a one-search-fits-all model are finding exceptions, and a number of niche search products are trying to respond to these increasingly diverse needs.

Also this week, Google introduced a test product called Fast Flip, which takes a retro look at Web design by making online news look like something magazine readers will find familiar.

The company has other news products — namely Google Reader and Google News — but is looking for ways to make news content more visual and to share some of the revenue.

The new products come as Microsoft’s Bing continues to elbow for more room in an online search market that Google has dominated for years. In June, 65 percent of all Internet searchers were done through Google sites, according to comScore. Microsoft caught only 8.4 percent of searchers in the same period.

Fast Flip, an experimental feature of Google Labs, is a Web application that allows users to scan news articles from 39 print and online publishers, including The New York Times, Newsweek, TechCrunch and Us magazine.

Users can “flip” through a horizontal stream of screen grabs of articles as they appear on the partners’ Web sites, with layout, design and images intact. You can click once on a story to enlarge the page; a second click takes you to the partner’s site. Users also can browse popular topics (the economy, Taylor Swift) or search for others of their choosing.

Google says the idea behind the new service is to make online news-browsing faster and replicate the reading experience of flipping through a magazine or newspaper.

Unlike Google News, which emphasizes breaking news articles from the past 24 hours, Fast Flip “is more for stories with a longer shelf life,” Google spokesman Chris Gaither said.

“We think there’s a lot of room for innovation in how people consume news articles on the Web,” Gaither said. “The easier it is for people to browse articles quickly, the more they’ll read.”

Loren Baker, editor of Search Engine Journal, says that increases in bandwidth make “visual search” functions more successful today than in previous years, when images would load more slowly.

Baker believes that Google Fast Flip could make it easier for people to scan news articles on their netbooks, tablets or even smartphones.

Renault’s Formula One boss Flavio Briatore has quit his post after the team announced Wednesday that it would not dispute race-fixing allegations relating to the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix.

Nelson Piquet Jr. during practice for the Singapore Grand Prix in September last year

In a statement on its Web site, the French team announced that its executive director of engineering, Pat Symonds, has also stepped down.

Nelson Piquet Jr. claimed Briatore asked him to crash in order to maximize the chances of teammate Fernando Alonso winning the race.

Last week Renault hit back against the allegations.

“Managing Director Flavio Briatore personally wish[es] to state criminal proceedings against Nelson Piquet Junior and Nelson Piquet Senior [have commenced] in France concerning the making of false allegations,” a statement read.

The statement added the three-times former world champion and his son had also attempted to “blackmail the team” into allowing Piquet Jr to continue to drive until the end of the 2009 season.

Renault, who dismissed Piquet Jr as their driver in August, also said they had referred the matter to the authorities.

The French car constructor now face being thrown out of Formula One if the allegations are proved by an investigation being conducted by the governing body of world motorsport, the FIA.

The team will go before the FIA’s World Motor Sport Council in Paris on September 21 to hear the findings of the probe.

Double world champion Alonso won the race — the first for Renault in two years — despite starting from 15th on the grid.

Just two laps after Alonso came in early to take on more fuel, Piquet’s crash forced the deployment of the safety car and the subsequent pit stop of nearly all other drivers, an action that promoted Alonso to fifth from where he went onto to secure victory.

Piquet attributed the crash to a simple error at the time.

Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone recently warned “there is going to be a lot of trouble” if the allegations are found to be true.

The FIA proved with the spygate saga only circumstantial evidence is required for them to impose strict penalties. On that occasion they fined McLaren $80 million for breaching the same article that is now now faced by Renault

Failure to agree a new UN climate deal in December will bring a “global health catastrophe”, say 18 of the world’s professional medical organisations.

Writing in The Lancet and the British Medical Journal, they urge doctors to “take a lead” on the climate issue.

In a separate editorial, the journals say that people in poor tropical nations will suffer the worst impacts.

They argue that curbing climate change would have other benefits such as more healthy diets and cleaner air.

December’s UN summit, to be held in Copenhagen, is due to agree a new global climate treaty to supplant the Kyoto Protocol.

But preparatory talks have been plagued by lack of agreement on how much to cut greenhouse gas emissions and how to finance climate protection for the poorest countries.

“There is a real danger that politicians will be indecisive, especially in such turbulent economic times as these,” according to the letter signed by leaders of 18 colleges of medicine and other medical disciplines across the world.

“Should their response be weak, the results for international health could be catastrophic.”

Rising risk

Earlier in the year, The Lancet, together with University College London (UCL), published a major review on the health impacts of climate change.

Some of the headline findings were that rising temperatures are likely to increase transmission of many infectious diseases, reduce supplies of food and clean water in developing countries, and raise the number of people dying from heat-related conditions in temperate regions.

Changing fuel can improve women’s lives as well as curbing emissions

But it also acknowledged some huge gaps in research - for example, that “almost no reliable data for heatwave-induced mortality exist in Africa or south Asia”.

Nevertheless, the main conclusion was that in a world likely to have three billion new inhabitants by the second half of this century: “Effects of climate change on health will affect most populations in the next decades and put the lives and wellbeing of billions of people at increased risk”.

The current Lancet and BMJ editorial that accompanies the letter from doctors’ organisations argues that climate change strengthens the cases that health and development charities are already championing.

“Even without climate change, the case for clean power, electric cars, saving forests, energy efficiency, and new agriculture technology is strong.

“Climate change makes it unanswerable.”

Written by Lord Michael Jay, who chairs the health charity Merlin, and Professor Michael Marmot of UCL, the editorial argues that there are plenty of “win-win solutions” available.

“A low-carbon economy will mean less pollution. A low carbon-diet (especially eating less meat) and more exercise will mean less cancer, obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.