X-Message-Number: 30210
From: 
Date: Tue, 25 Dec 2007 14:15:41 EST
Subject: search engines

Content-Language: en

 
Not a whole lot of cryonics relevance  here, but probably of interest to many 
cryonicists. I believe it tends to  support what I have been saying about the 
primitive state of "intelligent"  algorithms.  
R.E. 
http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/10/05/will-powerset-pull-a-google/  

 (http://www.powerset.com/) 

I haven   t seen a demo of upcoming search engine _Powerset_ 

(http://www.crunchbase.com/company/powerset)  yet, but  reportedly many people 
who have are 
impressed, _saying_ 


(http://venturebeat.com/2006/10/04/powerset-that-secretive-little-search-engine-company/#more-2087)
they   d never use  Google again. 
Powerset wants to let people use natural language when searching, including  
some words that search engines ignore today (what founder Barney Pell calls    

_stopwords_ (http://www.barneypell.com/archives/2006/10/powerset_and_na.html)
). Like most  people, I   ve learned to change my language when addressing a 

search engine. I  use important keywords and leave everything else out. Some of
these search  habits have even overflowed into my personal communications, and 
I find quick IM  and email discussions often look like crazy, meaningless 
words thrown back and  forth. Ten years ago I   d have no idea what those 

discussions meant. Today, they  are effective in getting through fast paced 
business 
conversations with people  I   m already familiar with. 

So while I believe that search is far from perfect today I didn   t necessarily
 think that the solution was to create a better way for computers to 

understand  what we meant. Frankly, I assumed that we   d continue to do a 
better job of 
 talking in a way that computers understood, and advances would come in  
other areas (deep web, better algorithms, rich media search, etc.). 
But _Pell_ (http://www.barneypell.com/archives/2006/10/powerset_and_na.html)  
lays out a  convincing argument that natural language search is important in 
order to  communicate meaning and intent. He uses example searches to make his 

point -     book for children   ,    book by children   , and    book about 
children   
 are all  equivalent to    book children    to search engines today. His core 
argument is that  there may be no way for us to properly express the query    
books by children     without using natural language. 
Powerset is looking for big money to launch their new engine. Venture  

capitalists are always the best source of rumors (the best time to hit them up  
for 
information is right after they   ve passed on a deal, or have lost it to  

another firm). If they don   t have a financial interest in the company, loose  
lips 
abound. With respect to Powerset, the _rumors_ 


(http://venturebeat.com/2006/10/02/bold-start-up-powerset-about-to-raise-10m-to-take-on-google/)
are that 
the  company is trying to raise $10 million on a $20 million pre-money 

valuation.  That   s a lot of money, but if Powerset pulls a Google, no one will
care.



**************************************See AOL's top rated recipes 
(http://food.aol.com/top-rated-recipes?NCID=aoltop00030000000004)


 Content-Type: text/html; charset="UTF-8"

[ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] 

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=30210