Ultimate Search Tool
Academia’s quest for the ultimate search tool | CNET News.com — I cannot see this working out. This is too little too late.
The University of California at Berkeley is creating an interdisciplinary center for advanced search technologies and is in talks with search giants including Google to join the project, CNET News.com has learned.
The project is one of many efforts at U.S. universities designed to address the explosive growth of Internet search and the complex issues that have arisen in the field.
U.C. Berkeley, birthplace of early search highflier Inktomi and the school where Google CEO Eric Schmidt got his computer science doctoral degree, is bringing together roughly 20 faculty members from various departments to cross-pollinate work on search technology, said Robert Wilensky, the center’s director. The principal areas of focus: privacy, fraud, multimedia search and personalization.
I wondered what your thoughts were on this “Able Danger” and 9/11 commission cover-up.
More and more I need not a better search tool for the ‘net (those that exist seem to meet my needs), but for the tens of thousands of files, emails, etc etc I’ve accumulated over the years on my desktop. Perhaps it’s “rose coloured glasses” syndrome, but I keep remembering Lotus Magellan fondly…..and I thought I had a data problem THEN!! LOL. Perhaps something exists out there….elaborate searches with a file preview window so I can easily check to see if the file is what I want…..but if so, I’ve yet to find it. Hey, maybe that’s why I need a better web search engine.
Gee and I thought these guys were supposed to do… research! You know into something new, not something that’s already established and being exploited full tilt by the private sector. Perhaps they could also do some research into the complex issues arising from the flavour of snack foods and how they can improve those flavours? Or perhaps improving reality TV shows? Yes there are many complex issues arising from the declining ratings of reality TV shows, lets get mobilized America! With every passing day the Asian nations are developing better tasting Ding Dongs and more entertaining Fear Factors. There’s not a moment to lose!
Milo, you must be kidding.
#4 Adam of course I’m kidding. This is research? Complex issues? What’s so complex? I type my query into Google and read to find what I’m looking for. If what I’m looking for doesn’t come up I try phrasing it differently. They’re going to focus on:
Privacy, what? There are laws to protect my privacy, technology doesn’t do one bit of good without those laws and new technology that supposedly protects me is cracked by some 15 year old a week after it’s released.
Fraud, same as privacy.
Multimedia search (Multimedia, a nonsense term anyway because media is already a plural so of course it’s multi.) I can do that now and all the commercial sites are trying to outdo each other as well as the P2P/Torrents, so it will be improved by the private sector who maybe should foot the bill rather than the public one.
Personalization, what is that? I’m searching for something I don’t have or know about, not something I do! How would I personalize that? Or to put it another way I type in the search I want and then see the results I get. How does it get more personal?
So as I sarcastically attempted to point out in my other post these are either things already in the private sector or things that aren’t technology issues at all. Of course for the researchers involved it sure beats doing real work and probably gets them laid more often so I’d probably do it too!