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EU Google Competitor Project Gets Aid Worth $166 Million

Posted by Zonk on from the euoogle-maybe-or-goorope dept.

mernil wrote with the news that the EU Commission has given the go-ahead to provide funding for Germany's search engine project, called Theseus. Early this year we discussed Germany's withdrawal from the French project Quaero. From the outside, it looks like the EU Commission is unwilling to put all its eggs in one basket, funding the German project to the tune of 120 million euro, or $US 166 million. Dow Jones reports: "The aim is to develop new search technologies for the next generation Internet, including 'semantic technologies which try to recognize the meaning of content and place it in its proper context.' The semantic Web has been considered the next evolution of the Internet at least since Tim Berners-Lee, widely considered a creator of the current version of the Internet, published an article describing it in 2001. In theory, a semantic Web could receive a user request for information about fishing, for example, and automatically narrow the results according to the user's individual needs rather than blanket the user with pages related to numerous aspects of fishing. The Commission's funding approval Thursday immediately sparked talk of building a potential European challenger to Web search leader Google Inc."

11 of 111 comments (clear)

  1. uh... by rs79 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "since Tim Berners-Lee, widely considered a creator of the current version of the Internet"

    Yeah, right.

    --
    Need Mercedes parts ?
  2. Have a VC / startup mentality by maelstrom · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Instead of big government bureaucracy, trying to force a Google competitor from the top down, the EU should be seeding promising European startups. The next Google is probably not going to look anything like Google, and you aren't going to find it with this style of funding.

    See also:

    --
    The more you know, the less you understand.
    1. Re:Have a VC / startup mentality by jgc7 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The VC / startup mentality is practically impossible in Germany or France because the labor markets are so rigid. The EU shouldn't be seeding promising startups, but rather loosing the labor markets so venture capital is promising to both investors and entrepreneurs. Giving millions to established corporations only makes the problem worse.

      What they need is an environment where to two Phd students can go to some rich dude's doorstep, pitch an idea, and walk away with a check for $100k without ever being invited inside.

      --
      70% of statistics are made up.
    2. Re:Have a VC / startup mentality by Prof.Phreak · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Forget about seeding startups. Just make -lots- of grants to universities doing this type of research (160 million can sponsor thousands of projects!)---maybe some of them will be successful (big gov projects have a tendency of turning into money pits).

      --

      "If anything can go wrong, it will." - Murphy

    3. Re:Have a VC / startup mentality by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      The socialist part is that the government is funding it. A private enterprise solution would be, you know, privately funded.

    4. Re:Have a VC / startup mentality by pimpimpim · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Wrong, it is then a government-funded piece of work. In your definition all (US) military projects are socialist as well? Furthermore, I'd like to add that these kind of projects are set up in a pretty efficient business-like manner, even better. The researcher gets a clear set of goals to reach within a certain period of time, using a certain amount of money. Good thing is that during this few years of funding the scientist has hardly any administrative work to do to find funding (instead of begging for small funds continuously). This makes sure that the scientist has enough time to work on the project, and actually work on things of his/her own interest as well, and it are those side projects they encounter on the way that usually give the biggest innovations.

      --
      molmod.com - computing tips from a molecular modeling
  3. What a complete waste of taxpayer money by Sanity · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Why are European governments taking money from European taxpayers, and giving it to the stodgy big companies of yesteryear, supposedly to promote research in an area that is more than adequately served by the free market?

    This is a ridiculous waste of taxpayer money, and a good demonstration of all that is wrong with beurocratic top-down European Union thinking (and I speak as a European).

    If you really want to promote innovation, then stop wasting taxpayer money on this type of crap and lower corporate taxes, encouraging an environment where the fit will thrive and the unfit will die.

    1. Re:What a complete waste of taxpayer money by Sanity · · Score: 2, Insightful

      How does lowering corporate taxes do anything other than making it a little less likely that the unfit will die? (Or at least extending the amount of time they can hold out for)?
      It makes the fit base their companies elsewhere.
  4. knockoffs, and how to compete by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Of course, google didn't come from government subsidies, it came from a few bright guys who made a startup and made it succeed by their hard work and sweat.

    The lesson Europe needs to learn is that the way to compete with the USA is not by trying to copy everything the USA does (google, GPS systems, operating systems, etc etc) but with government funding. The way to beat them is to innovate and make brand new things, made by the people who are passionate about doing something new and will pour their hearts and souls into it. That's why the Intel, Google, and Microsoft started in the USA, and why the European knockoffs all failed. You can't drive it from the top down: you have to let it grow from the bottom up. As soon as Europe learns this, there will be nothing to stop it.

    1. Re:knockoffs, and how to compete by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      You mean, Europe should develop own things?

      Like MP3? Or the World Wide Web?

  5. Obligatory speculation by Anc · · Score: 5, Insightful
    From the project's website:

    At the current time, 31 research institutions, universities, and companies have joined the THESEUS program with planned projects. The industrial and public research partners are cooperating closely. They are coordinated by empolis GmbH. Also involved are internationally recognized experts of the Fraunhofer Society, the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), the Research Center for Computer Science (FZI), the Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) and Technical University (TU) in Munich, the TU Darmstadt, the University of Karlsruhe, the TU Dresden, and the University of Erlangen. The application scenarios are developed from the immediate research results and utilization interests of the leading partners German National Library, empolis, Lycos Europe, SAP, Siemens, as well as the following additional partners involved: Deutsche Thomson oHG, Intelligent Views, m2any, Moresophy, Ontoprise, Verband Deutscher Maschinen- und Anlagenbau e.V. (VDMA), and the Institute of Radio Technology.
    The EU has funded a mostly academic research project but the post made it sound as if the direct goal was to create some kind of a competitor to Google. If this post was written differently, everyone here would be praising the EU for being farsighted and investing in science and research. But without some obligatory, flamboyant speculation it wouldn't look controversial enough to be posted on Slashdot, would it?