Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

A Search Engine For The Slower Net

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the most-everyone-most-everywhere dept.

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."

3 of 309 comments (clear)

  1. Cached searches by T5 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Might be a nice way to preserve searches for later perusal. Unlike bookmarking, the returned search results are stored in an email.

    This would be a good way to preserve stuff that may be the subject of removal due to court order, like xenu.net and other similar de-Googlings.

  2. Google Voice Search by GillBates0 · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Check out the Google Voice Search page. This has been up for quite a while now, and though not directly applicable as is, to people with a slow internet connection, it's just another alternative to emails. They should design it to respond by phone though. But again, people with dialup connections would, more often than not, not have a second phone line to request searches by phone.

    To try out this demo, please follow these simple steps:

    1. Pick up the phone and call the automated voice search system at (650) 318-0165.
    2. After the prompt Say your Search Keywords, say your query to the system.
    3. Click this link and a new window will open with your voice search results.
    4. Say another query, and the new window with the search results will be updated with the new results.

    --
    An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
  3. Good idea but... by Realistic_Dragon · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's a shame that with the way the net is going all they will get as search results will be flash heavy sites that take 20 minutes to download on broadband, let along dial up.

    Where did all the sites go that you could use wget -r to grab overnight? How about the odd few that used to offer a .tar.gz for download and offline reading.

    Content over presentation is a concept that needs to be reintroduced to the net, preferably with a stick.

    --
    Beep beep.