Slashdot Mirror
A Search Engine For The Slower Net
Makarand writes "According to this BBC News
article researchers at MIT
are developing a search engine for people
using the web on slower net connections.
The software will e-mail queries to a central server and receive the most relevant
webpages from the search results by e-mail in a compressed form. Since the program is too big to download over a poor net connection
it will be mailed on CDs to libraries for people to borrow and install. They are also considering trying to persuade computer sellers
in developing countries to install the program on machines."
I believe it is the pages themselves, not Google, that this is an attempt to deliver.
TODAY
I am reminded of the Prepaid Legal system of doing business. You call up and ask a question, and the next day, an attorney familiar with the area you are asking about calls you back to answer your questions and advise you. So maybe this isn't all that outdated of an idea after
IN REGARD TO THE SYSTEM IN THE ARTICLE:
To have this capability back in 1973 would have been unbelievable. In 1983, to have this available to every library in the US would have been an unbelievable achievement. To have it now is so slow that I start to go google eyed even thinking about it.
BUT
This is great for countries that are 20-30 years behind in technology. It will revolutionize the search for information for areas that are not as connected as the US.
is not slow connections, but connections that are unreliable
Using the phone in a country like Malawi can be a real adventure. It's not like the US at all.
Coincidentally (?) it is also very usefult to circumvent the Great Firewall. Way to go, but it would also be nice to optionally have the cached content (ala google) e-mailed as well. That would send the last standing wall crumbling.
Code poet, espresso fiend, starter upper.
RTFA.
Why don't you just scream "HI I'M FROM 'WESTERN' CIVILIZATION AND HAVE NO IDEA HOW THESE THINGS WORK IN LESS PRIVLEGED PLACES"
Google is too slow when your school has one phone line that is used for _everything_, including net access. Not to mention the cost of using the phone anyway. This allows all the students to submit thier searches to a teacher one day, the teacher then submits the all searches with only a couple minutes of dialing up. He can retrieve the compressed results a few days later with only a minutes of dialing up. Now go read the article. Someone needs to mod that post down, hopefully the poster can redeem themselves later in the thread with something insightful.
Seriously... something tells me that the serious push for broadband wasn't so grandma could do her geneology research faster... Someone once said that every advancement in media technology only came of age because it could be used to transmit porn.
Now, take a good hard look at your cubemate. You know what they do when they get home... and it's not BF1942... probably gives you good insight into their test bench naming conventions...
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
...only webdesigners had not collaborated to turn the web into the graphics orgy it is today. I mean, have these kids coming out of graphics school even browsed the relevant w3c specifications?
News Flash !
"Let us assume you are in Boston, and you have tons of research money in a fund and no clue what to do with it. If you want to find a new way to piss away the money, you've got to be really creative, especially if you want to do it AND claim to be socially conscious at the same time. So what you do is invent a problem. And then invent a solution. Doesn't matter if it works or not."
First, for those of you saying 'Google is fast enough even on a 14.4K' - think school with one phone line, perhaps not even available during the day. Or how about connections via satelite phone at $$/min? Suddenly you want super efficient, when you only earn 5 bucks a day.
As to what else this needs, the search engine needs to strip out all the crap before emailing a web page to you (Java, Flash, etc) - should focus on mostly text, small pictures only. Particulary since 486's would be a common platform for people using this, so the search engine better work well on one. You also should be able to strip out all pictures as an option to maximise text info download - remember turning off pictures in Netscape 2.x to speed up your browsing? If you need something it striped out, you should be able to query just for the bits you need later.
Also the ability to share your cache between computers would be huge if they can't have a server to do that for them. At any rate, means of transferring those precious pages you downloaded to another computer - on a floppy, unless you have local email.
W9x:Thanks for the make-work project Bill.
Google is obviously very light. If you really can't support the bandwidth for graphics, use lynx or turn off images totally.
I realize that developing countries don't have fast connections, but google works fine across 24k connections (and really ought to work fine on anything).
email requests and getting responses later seems like a bit more of a kludge than it needs to be.
bcl
Remember Lexington Green!
I liked this technology when it came the first time around. Archie via email? Anyone? Yay! MIT reinvented Archie! Only with a thick client instead of a small one! Way to go!
So what if it scans webpages instead of FTP sites. It's not that big of a leap.
"Love heals scars love left." -- Henry Rollins
Please explain how that is different than any other search engine.
I agree.
Slashdot would actually be a fairly intellectual place (with some humor) if people would read the article AND all the previous people's two cents before contributing some rehashed crap.
As of now, I swear 2/3 of the comments are "28.8 is fast enough" Makes me want to drill my eyes out for making the mistake of reading the comments.
Yeah I thought the same thing, though this goes a step further and sends compressed copies of the resulting pages back you, not just an index of the sites.
What I wonder is why the *client* needs any software? Why not just make an email addy that people send queries to (like you did with "archie") and get the results back in whatever mailer you've got already?
Chris
To "redeem myself," I'd like to make two points:
1. I was aiming for amusing with the Google thing. I decided to tack on the "real question" because I'm honest about my ignorance of the topic.
2. In what way will this search function highlight the control of relevance algorithms over the kind of knowledge folks using this search process will get? In a higher bandwidth society, I have the freedom to check out numerous searches and continually refine my search strings to find the best information. Folks using this service, however, will not be able to do so as readily.
3. I lied, third point. Ultimately, this just continues to reinforce the hierarchy of post-industrial nations over developing ones by giving them a quick fix for a dearth of wealth in the Information Age. For anyone to compete globally in knowledge or business, they have to have substantial information in a timely fashion. This provides neither, and while an admirable stopgap measure, fails to address the root problem.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
I am a graduate student working on the TEK project, and we have never received funding directed for TEK. So far, the project has been carried out using general research funds (for example, a faculty startup package) available to the PI. We have been operating with a very low budget, mainly with undergraduate students. One of the researchers, Libby Levison, worked on TEK for an entire year without receiving any pay. Most of us also work on unrelated projects that are funded separately.
As a policy, we have never applied for funding from any organization where we will be in competition with developing nations for the same dollar. For the record, we submitted a proposal to the NSF ITR program that covers TEK, but the proposal was rejected.