Enterprise Search

Google Quantum Search?

Google has recently announced the fruits of their research with D-Wave, a firm that claims they have built the first quantum computer. Hartmut Neven, Head of Google's Image Recognition team, announced they have been able to successfully sort 20,000 images into sets with and without automobiles faster than anything running in a Google data center currently.

The team adapted quantum adiabatic algorithms to the task and trained on a set of 20,000 human tagged images and video stills of street scenes with and without automobiles.

Perhaps we can look to the future of quantum computing to untangle the problem of relevance and high quality search.

Read more about the alleged Google Quantum Search

Deep Web Sponsoring a federated search challenge

Abe and Sol Lederman over at Deep Web Technologies have announced the second annual contest to discover the best federated search methodology out there. The objective, from their FederatedSearchBlog web site:

Tell us about the most impressive federated search application you’ve ever seen, or about one you’ve dreamed up. How innovative can federated search be? What unique problems can it solve?

The first ten serious entries get an Amazon gift certificate or $25 via PayPal; and the top prices are $1000, $500, and $250 respectively. The winner will be a panelist at the April 2010 Computers in Libraries conference; and Deep Web will pick up the travel costs for the winner.

Federated Search is a hot topic, partly because nearly every organization wants to search content they may not have rights to index. Deep Web Technologies has some great examples of federated search and query time facets and clustering. Check out their web site, then write up a submission, win a few bucks, and speak at the Computers in Libraries conference next Spring! Do it now!

/s/Miles