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Netscape Search to be powered by Google

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the ain't-that-spiffy dept.

UM_Maverick writes "According to this article at news.com, Netscape is going to replace their Excite-powered search engine with Google technology. " Heh. I use my google Slashbox a lot. Linux based search engines are good.

2 of 71 comments (clear)

  1. Riemann-type curvature-of-thought search engine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4

    Google, find +keyword -keyword etc ... it's just yet another single-point-of-thought-oriented brute force engine, no matter how elegant its structure and interface. Except that they be within the boolean realm of the header/body/links of an address, there is no relationship between the keywords. (Each keyword representing a point of thought sought by the user, the minimum point of thought being in fact a phrase.) In other words, all the boolean energy remains only within the header.body.link realm of a single file, which is a single point address.

    But the user's need is inevitably a curvature of thought problem. The user is seeking to solve a relationship between one thought and another.

    Why not make a quantum step contribution: think Riemann-type curvature-of-thought search engine. Allow the user to keyword two points of thought, as before, and also define an allowable separation or curvature-of-thought between them, such that, as in the case of url searches for example, the keywords be not only in the same file address, but possibly in two different files which are related by a common directory name, domain name, etc.

    This has economic implications for Mozilla which go far beyond web searches. With an half decent search engine, Mozilla could easily replace the fat and boated and proprietary adobe acrobat. This came up for me on a magazine company (history and law) which wanted to republish and gpl older issues in html-cdrom format. The necessary element was a decent search engine, like the ones used by lexus-nexus. In a Mozilla Gymnast, the user would still enter multiple points of thought (as in the prior boolean days), but would also be able to specify a relationship distance or curvature of thought as well. Curvature of thought for literature, law, science, programming, etc. would be defined by two points of thought (a variable name for example), but the relationship distance would be sentence, paragraph (subroutine), case-report/article, chapter, book, author and date, rather than url, subdomain, domain etc. Mozilla with an small integrated lexus-type search engine could improve on adobe acrobat, and terminate the proprietary pdf format.

    Next time you are struggling with a complex, hurried and meaningful search in url space, as you scan down the pages and pages of return data (no matter how complex your boolean input), look inwardly and see that what you were really looking for to start with was a relationship between two thought, or a curvature of thought. See how restricted you were because you were restricted to a brute force single-point boolean mode thinking at the start.

    Meaning comes from relationships between points of thought, the curvature of thought so to speak, and not from the point of thought itself.

    Think elegant, Mozilla. Think curvature of thought. Hell baby, that's how you were born.


  2. google isn't the only one. by underbider · · Score: 4

    Google is good, but as many has noted, it lacks comprehensiveness. The gut of Google is in its application of novel indexing technique first published by Kleinberg(http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/ kleinber.html) In a 1997 paper(http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/auth .ps). Google also benefits from a agressively engineered spidering/storage etc.

    But there is at least one other notable institution appying Kleinberg's technique. Take a look at NEC's inquirus: http://inquirus.nj.nec.com/
    Its slow... But it demonstrates some other Klienberg's Algorithm's properties and applications. Enjoy!