Search Technology

PicAnswers.com helps identify mystery objects

By Emily Clark

22:18 February 27, 2008 PST

February 28, 2008 The new PicAnswers.com website uses visual rather than word clues, to identify objects, people, places paintings - anything you can photograph. Often people stumble across things in life and are unsure as to their purpose and use; therefore a word driven search engine is not much help. Now they can upload an image instead of giving a verbal description. Read More

Google Local Search now available in BMW navigation systems

By Loz Blain

07:44 September 4, 2007 PDT

September 4, 2007 BMW has announced it’s enriching its ConnectedDrive in-car navigation system with a direct hookup to Google's Local Search. The console on your Beemer will soon be a virtual Yellow Pages that lets you search for businesses, restaurants and places of interest, then select one and have it automatically entered into your GPS nav system as a destination. Read More

Beyond the keywords: search engines getting smarter

By Loz Blain

June 22, 2007 Keyword-based search engines are a huge compromise; think for a moment about the tricks you need to use to get a good specific result from Google. The next generation of search is contextually and linguistically smarter, thinking more like a human and able to chase the meaning of a search term through a document instead of just looking for a handful of words. Xerox's new enterprise FactSpotter engine uses smart semantic and concept parsing to deliver quality search results from huge text databases. Read More