IP Communications

TMCnet
TMC Launches New Sites ::  NGC  |  4GWE  |  Green Tech  |  Satellite  |  IT |  ITEXPO  |  Healthcare  |  Smart Grid  |  M2M  |  Smart Products  |  AstriCon News  |  SATCON News
TMCnet CHANNELS
#1 VoIP Enabler: Risk-free, Quick & Easy Deployment
Advanced Carrier Services
Appliance Deployment
ATCA
Auto Dialer
BPA (3rd Party Remote Call Monitoring)
Broadcast Modulator
Business Phone Systems
Business Process Automation
Business VoIP
Call Center
Call Center Certification
Call Center Digital Signage
Call Center Furniture
Call Center Hiring
Call Center Management
Call Center On Demand
Call Center Outsourcing
Call Center Scheduling
Call Center Software
Call Center Solutions
Call Center Training
Call Center Workforce Management
Call Monitoring
Call Recording
Communications Enabled Business Processes
Conference Call
Conferencing
Contact Center Headsets
Contact Center Software
CRM Software
CRM Solutions
DID/DDI
Digital Signage
e911
E911 Hosted Solutions
Email Archiving
Email Server
Enterprise Fax over IP
Enterprise VoIP
Ethernet Extender
Fax
Fax Over IP
FoIP
HD Conference
Hosted Contact Center
Hosted Exchange
Hosted PBX
Integrated Communications
IP Fax
IP Multimedia
IP Phone Maker
IP Phone System
IP Phones
IVR
Lead Management Software
Master Agent
Mobile Management
Mobile Unified Communications
Mobile Video
NEBS
Network Installation
Open Source CRM
PBX PCI Adapter
Phone Systems
Portable Satellite Antenna
Predictive Dialer
Sales Software
SATCON
SIP
Speech Recognition and Text to Speech
Telecom Cost Management
Telecom Expense Management
Telecom Lifecycle Management
Telecom Training
Telemarketing Software
Telepresence
Testing IP Services
Virtual Call Center
Virtual Office
Virtual PBX
Virtual Receptionist
Voice Broadcast
Voice Management
Voice Over IP
Voice Peering
Voicemail Replacement
VoIP Call Recording
VoIP Contact Center
VoIP Developer
VoIP Gateways
VoIP Monitoring
VoIPSwitch
Web Conferencing
Web Meeting
Wholesale VoIP
Wireless Expense Management
Wireless Management
Workforce Management
Workforce Optimization
Share
More IP Communications Community Stories

 

May 13, 2008

Powerset Introduces Beta Version of Search Engine


By Shamila Janakiraman
TMCnet Contributor
Powerset’s search engine is expected to change people’s idea about search engines as it is designed to understand the meaning of Web pages, instead of using the conventional keyword technology. Powerset will offer a smarter and efficient experience and its beta version delivered good results, however with limited scope and index.

 

“We’re changing the way information is searched by doing a much deeper analysis of the pages we index,” said Scott Prevost, Powerset’s product director.

Usually keyword engines consider pages as word bags; only indexing their content without taking into account its meaning. Powerset’s engine uses technology developed in-house and licensed from Xerox’s PARC subsidiary. It creates a semantic representation by parsing each sentence and extracting its meaning. According to Prevost, meanings are indexed by Powerset instead of just words. Powerset assembles a collection of facts for each query and also summarizes the information found besides providing direct answers to factual questions.

 
Powerset’s index is quite limited now compared to the millions of pages provided from Wikepedia and Metaweb technologies’ Freebase. However, the volume is expected to grow in the following months.

Greg Sterling, an industry analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence, said in an e-mail interview, “Powerset’s capabilities are impressive. What they’ve created is both a better search engine for Wikipedia and a massive ‘proof of concept’ for their algorithm and technology.”
 
Powerset has to scale and deliver for several billion Web pages in order to serve millions of concurrent users. What Powerset has offered Wikepedia must also be offered to the entire Internet; an enormous task requiring resources and time. Although it needs more computational power, the indexing and retrieving of information pages will not be that difficult.
 
Although the company is a start-up technology firm facing several challenges, it still has investors providing the resources necessary to scale up the search engine to enable indexing of up to 20 billion pages.
 
The business model of Powerset is based on advertising, but the company plans not to serve ads in the beginning. The search engine will limit itself to Web search for now, and will be adding specialty engine for images, video, and other important topics like health, product reviews, and travel later on.
 
Shamila Janakiraman is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Shamila’s articles, please visit her columnist page.
 
 
 

 

More IP Communications Community Stories
Discussions:
 

Participate in the Community:
Add Your Thoughts and Comments Now 		 
 
By  
TMCnet
+ Add to the Discussion
 
Share