Google Wins Rights to Aussie Algorithm 211
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."
What about Slashdot? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What about Slashdot? (Score:3, Funny)
Why stop at first topic? It could be used to -gasp- prevent dupes!
Example:
Topic: Bill Gates plans to rule world.
Warning: Your topic has been posted 82 times. Do you wish to post anyhow?
Yes No
Eh, okay, maybe it wouldn't work after all.
Re:What about Slashdot? (Score:3, Funny)
Woah woah woah! Bill Gates plans to do what?!? Why haven't I heard anyone say anything about this before???
His future is so bright, he's got to wear shades! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:His future is so bright, he's got to wear shade (Score:5, Funny)
You don't think that Gates would say anything publicly before buying all the rights if the algorithm were any good, do you?
Re:His future is so bright, he's got to wear shade (Score:5, Funny)
Re:His future is so bright, he's got to wear shade (Score:2, Funny)
Re:His future is so bright, he's got to wear shade (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
--Joe
Re:His future is so bright, he's got to wear shade (Score:3, Informative)
Re:His future is so bright, he's got to wear shade (Score:2)
(This was the 3rd result of this search [google.com]. Serendipity Now!)
Re:His future is so bright, he's got to wear shade (Score:2)
Well in fact, gates praised thinking that google would knew that google would know that he was falsily praising the algorithm while he consulted his lawyers to fit the algorithm into some generical patent microsoft holds so they coul
Re:His future is so bright, he's got to wear shade (Score:2)
This whole "licensing technology" thing confuses them.
They innovate so much [microsoft.com] that they've invented everything in computer science. What is left for them to license? Automobile technology? Drugs? Swinging sideways?
Re:His future is so bright, he's got to wear shade (Score:2)
Riiiiiight.
Somewhere in the dim recesses of my brain is a faint memory of a huge searchable database available to "certain Israelis" cough
Re:His future is so bright, he's got to wear shade (Score:2)
Re:His future is so bright, he's got to wear shade (Score:2)
Challengin other search engines (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Challengin other search engines (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm curious about whether these inaccuracies are limited to science/
Re:Challengin other search engines (Score:5, Funny)
::Clasps hand over mouth in mock shock and horror::
-Grey [wellingtongrey.net]
Re:Challengin other search engines (Score:5, Insightful)
a) the amount of inaccuracies in the media
b) the amount we trust the media to tell unbiased or factual truth
Re:Challengin other search engines (Score:2)
I'm SHOCKED, I tell you! SHOCKED!!!
Well, actually, not that shocked.
Re:Challengin other search engines (Score:3, Insightful)
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?
I read that as An algorithm and treated it as a definition of algorithm for their less-attuned audience.
Re:Challengin other search engines (Score:2)
Aussies are gonna getcha now! (Score:4, Funny)
Now watch this post get modded straight to hell by my infuriated countrymen.
Re:Challengin other search engines (Score:2)
There are many kinds of building block, young one.
Re:Challengin other search engines (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1, Offtopic)
What's with the headline? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What's with the headline? (Score:2, Informative)
At an auction, or any time multiple parties are competing to buy something. From TFA:
Re:What's with the headline? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What's with the headline? (Score:2)
Everyone likes to win.
Re:What's with the headline? (Score:4, Funny)
Very fishy (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Very fishy (Score:3, Insightful)
Further proof that nationalism is BS. Where he was from or what part of the world he wrote it in is irrelevant and always is. A person wrote this.
Re:Very fishy (Score:3, Funny)
Speciesist!
Re:Very fishy (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, but bought by an American company. USA! USA! USA!
Re:Very fishy (Score:2)
And build by the Japanese subcontractor who, incidentally, just became a wholly owned subsidiary.
Re:Very fishy (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Very fishy (Score:4, Funny)
So I guess we know what he did with the money then.
Re:Very fishy (Score:5, Funny)
Except Russel Crowe, he turned out to be complete knob and we don't want him anymore, so now he's a New Zealander again.
Re:Very fishy (Score:2)
OK, Chinese, sure
Re:Very fishy (Score:2)
GO NOOOOORWAAAAAAAAAYYY!!
WOW (Score:3, Funny)
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??
Re:WOW (Score:3, Funny)
I hope this helps: Another article [wikipedia.org].
Re:WOW (Score:2)
I'm guessing that English majors are generally more technically adept than engineering majors are grammatically adept. You needn't judge a whole discipline based on this article. It's also good to remember that there is no getting around the fact that when writing for a general audience the material is going to suffer some loss of precision as it is translated. This article probably wasn't the best candidate for a posting to Sl
Re:WOW (Score:3, Funny)
Intellectual ownership (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Intellectual ownership (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Intellectual ownership (Score:2, Informative)
This part is true.
And they are pretty good at making sure the people who did the actual work get something out of it too.
Unfortunately, this part is only true in some locations and some departments. Specific terms for this are rarely written into contracts, and it is usually up to the discretion of a dean or other official. This is unfortunate, because it keeps a lot of bright people out of academia.
It's rather frustrating for researchers to do their work at lower-
Re:Intellectual ownership (Score:3, Informative)
If you're a grad student though, it belongs to them.
If you work for the University while an undergrad, the lines get murky.
Re:Intellectual ownership (Score:2)
Holy Hypes, Batman! (Score:4, Interesting)
Do a Google Scholar [google.com] search for publications in CS/EE, and you get... nothing.
His own web page is bare, with no details.
A Science Daily [sciencedaily.com] 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.
Re:Holy Hypes, Batman! (Score:5, Informative)
In nearly every country other than the US, publication disqualifies an invention from patent eligibility.
Re:Holy Hypes, Batman! (Score:2)
Re:Holy Hypes, Batman! (Score:2)
Business as usual (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, wait...
I can understand why Google did this... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I can understand why Google did this... (Score:2)
Or even if you just want to be cynical about it, they might just be trying to keep legitimate competition from springing up, just like they did. Good job either way...
--
Was it the sheep climbing onto the altar, or the cattle lowing to be slain,
or the Son of God hanging dead and bloodied on a cross that told me this was a world condemned, but loved and bou
Oooh you mean they replaced Boyer Moore? That's to (Score:3, Informative)
Nobody uses Boyer-Moore... (Score:3, Interesting)
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., lo
Smart use of your university time... (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:Smart use of your university time... (Score:2)
It almost makes me feel like I wasted those years of my life. I said almost...
Title makes it sound much worse than it is (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Other algorithms have been around... (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Re:Other algorithms have been around... (Score:5, Funny)
Patent office.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Other algorithms have been around... (Score:2)
None of the two applies to the Orion hype. Yes, it is possible that someone sees what's been wrong in a flash of inspiration, but the description points at an application of older techniques (trying to guess the topic from running text). So, I really wonder
The actual patent applications (Score:3, Informative)
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!
Sounds like the title of a book ... (Score:2)
- ScrewMaster's Books in Review
Hello? Mr. Ludlum? Uh
Thesaurus? (Score:2)
Wanna demo? This technology has been around (Score:2)
If you want a demo of a product (mine, natch) that's been around in one from or another since 2004, check out Q-Phrase's ConceptQ Pro [q-phrase.com] product. A free version which does just web search will be coming soon.
Here's a screensh [q-phrase.com]
NSW (Score:2)
Re:World Domination Algorithm (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:World Domination Algorithm (Score:5, Insightful)
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...
Re:World Domination Algorithm (Score:2)
Rights (Score:2)
The "opportunity cost" to hire someone would be something like the 5 minutes it takes to do the interview, not whatever you're thinking of.
Besides, the summary says they didn't hire him; they bought the rights to use an algorithm he invented.
Re:Rights (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Mine is better (Score:2)
grep -i search texts/*
Re:Mine is better (Score:2)
grep -i search the_whole_fucking_internet/texts/*
Re:Uh..... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Uh..... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Uh..... (Score:2, Funny)
KFG
Re:Google + Thesaurus? (Score:2)
On a tangent, I'm frustrated by online thesauri, not to mention the majority of thesauri, which are formatted similar to a dictionary. When I was in middle school, I had an outline based thesaurus that was great. It was indexed, to make it easier to find words, but the outline structure added a lot to the sense of the different shades of meanings.
I'm disappoin
Re:Google + Thesaurus? (Score:2)
http://www.visualthesaurus.com/ [visualthesaurus.com]
Re:Google + Thesaurus? (Score:2)
Re:Google + Thesaurus? (Score:2)
Since the idea is worth something, it seems that details have not been released yet. But I would imagine it is possible to construct proximity ratings between search terms by an algorithm which assesses the number of corresponding links to pages containing other terms. This could digest a
Google + Thesaurus = Crazy Delicious! (Score:2)
IIRC, Google already does similar work using the tilde (~) symbol in front of a search term to search for it and its synonyms [google.com]. Google also introduced Google Sets [google.com] a while ago, which does an interesting grouping of similar items, although not necessarily synonyms. I haven't yet seen the sets integrated into Google's standard search by default, so I suppose this is a possible implementation of
Re:Serious Undertakings by Google (Score:2)
So much depends on a red wheel barrow (Score:2)
Re:So much depends on a red wheel barrow (Score:2)
The secret is (Score:2)
Re:The secret is (Score:2)
Re:(OT) Paragraphs!! (Score:2)
Re:Patented Too! (Score:2)
Personally I'm working on my algorithm for recognising pages selling stuff and only returning them WHEN I'M LOOKING TO BUY STUFF. It would do more for Google than this algorithm and personally I could do with a few million.
Re:Patented Too! (Score:2)
That would be pretty cool [froogle.com].
Re:It's an Australian invention (Score:5, Funny)
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
Re:It's an Australian invention (Score:2)
That's really disturbing. I was less concerned about you guys when I figured you were all playing with poisonous snakes and teaching your 2-year-olds how to ride alligators...
Re:It's an Australian invention (Score:2)
Australians don't say "crikey!" (much - unless we're toying with the Seppos ;-); we don't drink Fosters (unfortunately, Australia's best-selling beer is VB, which is even worse...); and we don't all ride around in kangaroos (we have wallabies, which are smaller and easier to park...)
We do say "crikey" when referring to Crikey for political and business gossip [crikey.com.au] and doing Steve Irwin impersonations when we are overseas ;)
Re:Why buy an "algorithm"? (Score:2)
Re:Why buy an "algorithm"? (Score:2)
See amongst others http://swpat.ffii.org/analysis/epc52/index.en.htm
Re:Why buy an "algorithm"? (Score:2)