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Google Wins Rights to Aussie Algorithm
rcbutcher writes to tell us the Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that Google has just acquired the rights to a brand new text search algorithm invented by a University of NSW student. From the article: "Orion works as an add-on to existing search engines to improve the relevance of search and won praise from Microsoft founder Bill Gates last year. [...] Orion finds pages where the content is about a topic strongly related to the key word. It then returns a section of the page, and lists other topics related to the key word so the user can pick the most relevant."
Something like this could be used to check if the content of first posts is related to the story or not. ;-P
Google just bought your script before Microsoft could do more than praise it; I would suggest you duck before the chair hits the fan.
For some reason my fountain pen doesn't work here.
Only Women Bleed (Sex, Sharia remix)
The algorithm is a problem-solving computational procedure and is the building block for all search engines like those operated by Google and Yahoo.
...won praise from Microsoft founder Bill Gates last year.
No it's not. Otherwise they would've implemented it already. How can something be a building block if the thing they're referring to isn't built on it?
Orion finds pages where the content is about a topic strongly related to the key word.
Duh. Welcome to Google in the 1990's.
The results to the query are displayed immediately in the form of expanded text extracts, giving the searcher the relevant information without having to go to the website - although there is still that option.
What was stopping Google from creating something like this before? Is it just me or is this being hyped just a bit?
That it's, enough said. Hope you got a receipt for that Google.
You don't think that Gates would say anything publicly before buying all the rights if the algorithm were any good, do you?
Only Women Bleed (Sex, Sharia remix)
Since when are "wins" and "buys" interchangable verbs?
-*The above statement is printed entirely on recycled electrons*-
First, it is funny how various countries are putting a nationalistic spin on it. Israeli newspapers are focusing on the fact that the inventor is an Israeli. Australian newspapers are focusing on the fact that he is Australian. Only the national newspapers are spinning this as "revolutionary technology."
Second, the description sounds alot like what Google and others do already.
Third, buying a single algorithm is not generally such a big deal. Maybe it is reasonably valuable. Maybe so valuable that Google paid ten million dollars for it. In the big scheme of things, that's chump change for them and for their competitors.
The whole thing sounds overhyped to me.
Mod parent up.
This is more likely than not the motiviation behind this move.
Even if google doesn't need this guy, you can be assured that Yahoo, Microsoft, and co. DO need this guy, and the fact that he may very well indeed positively contribute to Google's search algorithms makes it a good choice for google to hire this guy. In short, the risks associated with not hiring him are far too great.
I for one am glad that Google is finally acquring technologies relating to their original business model rather than their string of oddball acquisitions lately...
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
The algorithm, or search engine tool, is called Orion.
Way to reduce CS to the web. And that was possibly the most UN-enlightening article I've EVER read. Does anyone have a link to something with more meat??
An old-timer with old-timey ideas.
While Mr Allon is the key person behind Orion, the university retains ownership of the intellectual property as it was developed within the university's research facilities.
Bleh, sometimes I think I shouldn't leave my house for fear of coming up with an idea where someone else can lay claim to it. It could be that he needed the computational resources of the university to develop the algorithm, but it's easily imaginable that the university could be laying claim to it when he was working without any real assistance.
I know that there are a number of issues around this (where do you draw the line?), but still - in general writing algorithms is a creative act, so they should belong to the creator(s), if it is even possible to own an algorithm.
Do a Google Scholar search for publications in CS/EE, and you get... nothing.
His own web page is bare, with no details.
A Science Daily article from September 2005 (yeah, over 6 months ago) mentions this "algorithm", but scan details.
I highly doubt the novelty/effectiveness of this "algorithm" if it has been patented before being published in a peer-reviewed journal.
Yet again. Micro$oft shows they can't innovate and only buy others innovation with their monopolistically acquired money.
Oh, wait...
Mmmm.. Donuts
I read a book on the Google story a while back. What I remember is that when they came up with the algorithm, they worked with Stanford to pitch the algorithm to Altavista, Yahoo, etc. They wanted about $1 million for it but nobody wanted it. The Google guys just wanted money so they could scale up their experiment with more computers and storage but none of the big guys could see any money in search engines. Then at the prodding of the Stanford folks, they found a few angel investors and build up their company and the rest is history. So I guess the Google guys don't want to miss any opporunity and probably have a soft spot for these college students for when they were in the same place.
Only Women Bleed (Sex, Sharia remix)
Now THAT would be an interesting premise for a cyberpunk short story. "Got a new quantum prime sieve. Tears down the hardest ICE in a matter of nanos. What you got?" "The best Starcraft AI ever." "I'm not a fan of the old school." "Hmm... in that case, a steganographic algorithm so powerful it can hide fourty-five terabytes in your rand() seed?" "Oh, that sounds good" "6D Pong, default settings?" "Your algorithmical distinctiveness will be added to my own."
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
Do you even know what you're talking about? Have you even tried it? It works really well. Do a search for Foster's and the first result is beer, followed by sheila, shrimp on the barbie, and g'day mate. I don't know how we ever survived before having an Aussie algorithm.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boyer-Moore_algorithm
Not a bad algorithm.
I couldn't tell if your fictional geeks were comparing penis sizes, wagering, or negotiating a marriage.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
I like his initiative though. I wonder if he looked around at the current marketplace and thought "hmmm... so I gotta few years to research something... Google's looking pretty hot right now... why not build something I can sell them the end of it?". If he did, he's smarter than the average bear.
Actually I did a similar thing during my undergraduate degree in the early-mid 90s. I designed a very early back-end/database for a generic web-based online store. About 2 weeks into my project I got a call from a big record company (who apparently had heard about my work) and they bought it, despite it being mainly on paper at that point. I won't say who it was, I ended up working for them for a short time after I graduated, and as far as I'm aware, their site still uses the core of my code.
Yes.
KFG
Since it sounds like he was a student immediately before, it sounds like a step up in his career, and the only possibly evil thing I ended up seeing here was that Google is taking on a tech with Microsoft praise.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
The guy must have invented something absolutely bloody amazing. I mean, it's not like similar technology hasn't been around for ages now (check contributions to the TREC (http://trec.nist.gov/) conferences. Some of the submissions reach a level of sophistication Google can only dream of. And the algorithms are published.
So, what's up with this "Orion" thing? What insanely great insight into language processing can a CS student have that whole teams of experts still didn't get?
How dare you try to pull the rug out from another of our cause célèbres? See, Google is a big, famous, mostly American company, and they've bought an Australian product! That makes all Aussies famous and important and sopheeeeesteeecated! No, really, it does. Honestly. So stop trying to ruin this for us you ungrateful fuckwit, and keep saying nice things about the United States of Australia, because our egos need it.
Now watch this post get modded straight to hell by my infuriated countrymen.
Truth be told, the typical Australian is less like Steve Irwin, and more like that other great Australian export - The Wiggles. Next time you meet an Australian sneak up behind them, make your hands into pistol-shapes, rotate them vertically in front of you, and scream "WAKE UP, JEFF!" in their ear. They'll appreciate it
What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
... at least, not when they have terabytes of data to search through. While Boyer-Moore is an asymptotically optimal algorithm for non-indexed string matching, Google (and everybody else who wants to perform multiple searches against the same data set) uses indexed matching algorithms.
With indexed matching algorithms, you can search for a string of length M within a string of length N in M + log(N) steps -- far faster than B-M's M + N/M steps -- and you can even search for matches with mismatches (e.g., locations where the strings match at 50% of their positions) almost as fast as B-M (asymptotically B-M finds exact matches log(N)*log(M) times as fast as matches-with-mismatches can be found).
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
actually, you would search for "beer" and you would get Foster's...because Foster's is Australian for beer.
I don't have access to the patent applications as they were only filed late last year, but the the two relevant patents are:
Australian Application Number 2005906358
Applicant(s) Newsouth Innovations Pty Ltd
Inventor(s) Allon, Ori
Martin, Eric
Title A method and a system for facilitating ranking of textual information
Status Filed
Filing Date 16 November 2005
Date of Patent 16 November 2005
Patent Application Type Provisional
Australian Application Number 2005905853
Applicant(s) Newsouth Innovations Pty Ltd
Inventor(s) Allon, Ori
Martin, Eric
Title Methods and systems for facilitating ranking of an advertisement
Status Filed
Filing Date 20 October 2005
Date of Patent 20 October 2005
This makes me suspect that there is more to this story the SMH is reporting!
Automated DNA sequencing software
You do realize that:
(Oops, got carried away there.) For me, I happen to enjoy Cooper's Stout. Basically, from the sounds of it, Fosters is about as authentic as Outback Steakhouse.
--JoeProgram Intellivision!
And really, other than the novelty can, Fosters isn't really that good of a beer. Somewhere between Bud and Miller, (which is pretty darn low) on my scale...
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