19 June 2008
First launched in May 2008, Powerset's Wikipedia Search was released as a search engine that would return more accurate and straightforward results from Wikipedia. This has now been brought into the world of the iPhone, where browsing large amounts of text can be both time consuming and frustrating for users.
What separates Powerset from normal browsing is its ability to find the relevant article and the exact passage that relates to the original search query, rather than the user being taken to the relevant page and having to search for themselves. This is certainly a new and interesting way of tackling the web on internet-enabled mobile devices, such as the iPhone, when compared to the likes of iPodia and Wapedia, which just re-format Wikipedia articles to better fit the screen while shrinking - or removing - images to conserve bandwidth.
By approaching search in this way, Powerset hopes to change the way users search and consume web content, since their search method matches the meaning of the user's query to the meaning of the sentences in Wikipedia. A good example, and a question that many bigmouths are used to, is "What is SEO?" This query brings back an explanatory paragraph followed by related results shown in the screenshot below.
You can also see a brief demonstration of this tool in use on the iPhone by watching a video uploaded by Powerset on Vimeo.
Powerset has set itself very high goals and not just for search. Their site states: "Powerset's goal is to change the way people interact with technology by enabling computers to understand our language. While this is a difficult challenge, we believe that now is the right time to begin the journey. Powerset is first applying its natural language processing to search, aiming to improve the way we find information by unlocking the meaning encoded in ordinary human language."
Considering how easy this is to use, and the increasing number of people searching from their iPhone, it will be very interesting to see how popular Powerset becomes and how they will eventually tackle going beyond searching Wikipedia to searching the web as a whole.
The main question that this has brought up on the blogosphere is: will this be better than using Google for mobile web searches? We shall have to wait patiently to find out.
Powerset brings better, more user-friendly Wikipedia Search to the iPhone
First launched in May 2008, Powerset's Wikipedia Search was released as a search engine that would return more accurate and straightforward results from Wikipedia. This has now been brought into the world of the iPhone, where browsing large amounts of text can be both time consuming and frustrating for users.What separates Powerset from normal browsing is its ability to find the relevant article and the exact passage that relates to the original search query, rather than the user being taken to the relevant page and having to search for themselves. This is certainly a new and interesting way of tackling the web on internet-enabled mobile devices, such as the iPhone, when compared to the likes of iPodia and Wapedia, which just re-format Wikipedia articles to better fit the screen while shrinking - or removing - images to conserve bandwidth.
By approaching search in this way, Powerset hopes to change the way users search and consume web content, since their search method matches the meaning of the user's query to the meaning of the sentences in Wikipedia. A good example, and a question that many bigmouths are used to, is "What is SEO?" This query brings back an explanatory paragraph followed by related results shown in the screenshot below.
You can also see a brief demonstration of this tool in use on the iPhone by watching a video uploaded by Powerset on Vimeo.
Powerset has set itself very high goals and not just for search. Their site states: "Powerset's goal is to change the way people interact with technology by enabling computers to understand our language. While this is a difficult challenge, we believe that now is the right time to begin the journey. Powerset is first applying its natural language processing to search, aiming to improve the way we find information by unlocking the meaning encoded in ordinary human language."
Considering how easy this is to use, and the increasing number of people searching from their iPhone, it will be very interesting to see how popular Powerset becomes and how they will eventually tackle going beyond searching Wikipedia to searching the web as a whole.
The main question that this has brought up on the blogosphere is: will this be better than using Google for mobile web searches? We shall have to wait patiently to find out.
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