Search Research: New Search Engine Aims to Google the Real World

From The Telegraph:

Developed by a team based at the University of Glasgow with funding from the EU and help from technology industry giants, “Terrier” aims to answer questions about the real world in real time, such as “how busy is the city centre?”
By using information from cameras, microphones and social networks, the system will provide localised, relevant information. A member of the public could ask a question about traffic conditions in the city centre or their friends’ favourite bars and receive useful results, something not currently possible via commercial offerings like Google.

Learn More From the University of Glasgow Announcement:

Dr Iadh Ounis, of the University of Glasgow’s School of Computing Science, said: “The SMART project will be built upon an open-source search engine technology known as Terrier we have been developing at the University since 2004, and we’re pleased to be involved in this innovative research initiative.
“The SMART engine will be able to answer high-level queries by automatically identifying cameras, microphones and other sensors that can contribute to the query, then synthesising results stemming from distributed sources in an intelligent way.
“SMART builds upon the existing concept of ‘smart cities’, physical spaces which are covered in an array of intelligent sensors which communicate with each other and can be searched for information. The search results sourced from these smart cities can be reused across multiple applications, making the system more effective.
“We expect that SMART will be tested in a real city by 2014.”
The SMART project is a joint research initiative of nine partners including Atos, Athens Information Technology, IBM’s Haifa Research Lab, Imperial College London, City of Santander, PRISA Digital, Telesto and Consorzio S3 Log.

Direct to SMART Web Site

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