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IBM vs. Content Chaos

ps writes "IBM's Almaden Research Center has been featured for their continued work on "Web Fountain", a huge system to turn all the unstructured info on the web into structured data. (Is "pink" the singer or the color?) IEEE reports that the first commercial use will be to track public opinion for companies. " It looks like its feeding ground is primarily the public Internet, but it can be fed private information as well.

15 of 216 comments (clear)

  1. I think a better question... by bc90021 · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...doesn't concern whether "Pink" is a colour or a singer, but whether "Paris Hilton" is a hotel in France or an oft downloaded video... ;)

    1. Re:I think a better question... by Dave2+Wickham · · Score: 2, Funny

      "from the help-me-find-directions-to-p4r1s-h1l70n dept."

    2. Re:I think a better question... by ePhil_One · · Score: 2, Funny

      Oh, by the way, which one's Pink?

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  2. pr0nfountain by 3lb4rt0 · · Score: 1, Funny

    The spinoff that will be used by joe sixpack net user.

  3. structure... by Rhubarb+Crumble · · Score: 5, Funny
    a huge system to turn all the unstructured info on the web into structured data

    In order to do this, they will use a scheme by which each document is referred to by a string including the transfer protocol, the host name, and a file path.

    oh, wait...

  4. First customer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    IEEE reports that the first commercial use will be to track public opinion for companies.

    Word has it the first test case will be SCO. Web fountian: "Outlook not so good"

  5. SITE ALREADY SLASHDOTTED, HERES A MIRROR! by ThisIsAnExampleAccou · · Score: 2, Funny
  6. Information... by enrico_suave · · Score: 1, Funny

    Information wants to be... Fuscia!

    *shrug*

    e.

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  7. Re:What about Existing Data? by Ronald+Dumsfeld · · Score: 5, Funny
    Are you telling me that there are programmers willing to go through [Insert Ludicrously Large Number Here] files and "annotate" them using XML to fit the new system?

    No, they're writing software to put in the XML tags.

    What will be more interesting to see is if it's possible to pollute the database by putting in your own XML. Instead of Google-Bombing we'll have people pissing in the WebFountain.
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  8. What is PINK? by BigBlockMopar · · Score: 2, Funny

    (Is "pink" the singer or the color?)

    I didn't get the joke.

    These are, after all, engineers. Pink is neither a color nor a singer (talented or otherwise).

    To an engineer, PINK can only be an acronym.

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  9. IBM's Pink by th77 · · Score: 2, Funny

    IBM should know that Pink was the predecessor to Taligent which was the predecessor to absolutely nothing.

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  10. SCO by Zork+the+Almighty · · Score: 4, Funny

    IEEE reports that the first commercial use will be to track public opinion for companies.

    Searching "SCO"
    Found "Slashdot"
    ERROR arithmetic underflow.

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  11. CrapFountain by s4m7 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Here's how it works:

    Executive Bob, who's paid IBM $150,000 for his enterprise liscence of webfountain, enters into his webfountain search box: "Pink the musician, not the color"

    IBM's powerful software parses this command into "pink music -color" and passes it to google, retrieves the results, removes Google's paid ads and replaces them with IBM's paid ads. The content is then served to Executive Bob, who shouts: "EUREKA" since within the top ten search results he finds "NUDE PICTURES OF RAPPER PINK!"

    IBM then lands a lucrative support contract with Exectutive Bob to remove all the viruses and spyware from his desktop PC. Rinse and Repeat.

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  12. Prior art :o) by Mr_Silver · · Score: 3, Funny
    IEEE reports that the first commercial use will be to track public opinion for companies

    You can do that already with Google:

    A search for "Microsoft is evil" gets you 600,000 pages.

    A search for "Microsoft is good" gets you 3,590,000 pages.

    Therefore Microsoft is more good than evil.

    Err ... that wasn't quite the answer I was expecting.

    (cue sounds of joke falling apart...)

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  13. Colour, singer OR band... by WebCowboy · · Score: 2, Funny

    Wonder if this "web fountain" will be smart enough to determine the context to THAT level.

    A painter thinks "colour" when he sees the word.

    A slashdot reader (and many other grown-ups) thinks of the band "Pink Floyd".

    If you are (or are the parent of) a teen-aged girl you think of neither...you think of the anti-Britney pop-star princess of angst Pink