(From ACM listserv)
"Quest for the Last Word in Search"
Times Online (UK) (11/19/06); Durman, Paul
Google's director of research Peter Norvig describes today's search engines
as "the very beginning of search," seeing the eventual possibility for
semantic search engines. Google is constantly tweaking its search engine,
not only combating companies trying to boost their own search rankings, but
improving the effectiveness of the search engine's ability to provide users
with appropriate, helpful results. Norvig, an artificial intelligence
expert who previously worked at NASA, says that most of his colleagues are
"disappointed" that searching still consists of entering a few words into a
box. Google's goal is to be able search all types of information,
including books, pictures, and videos. The company's Google Print project,
for example, is an effort to digitize and make searchable thousands of
books, while it's also working on speech-recognition technology that would
allow a user to simply "tell" their cell phone what they are looking for
and have Google provide them with results. Norvig says, "We need to
understand where words are on a page, we need to understand diagrams. We
need to update our algorithms to understand what the right answer is from a
500-page book. We are doing all that." One day Norvig hopes to see the
advent of semantic searches, where users can simply pose a question and
receive an answer. Meanwhile, other companies are attempting to surpass
Google's abilities, including Hakia, a New York Firm advised by Yorick
Wilks of Sheffield University, which is creating what they call a
"meaning-based" search engine. Norvig believes that competition will only
strengthen overall innovation, and that only Google is fully capable of
realizing and deploying such innovations on a large scale.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2095-2459650.html