Quaero : Goal Surpasses Industrial Stakes

While covering the differences between search,I referred to the findings on variations in results of various search engines. Earlier I wrote about the excellent guide to finding information search . Some time back,I came across this excellent list of search engines and the unique search value that each search engine brings to the fore. Recently I covered about the efforts to create a Japanese search engine – wherein Matsushita Electric Industrial, Hitachi, NEC and Fujitsu as well as telecom carrier Nippon Telegraph and Telephone and public broadcaster NHK & Japan's government, and universities are teaming up to develop their own Internet search technology. The Japanese society now recognizes that Information searches have become a source of wealth. Now comes the news about thee EU’s efforts to create a european search engine (Quaero) is gaining momentum. The Economist writes that the agency identified for developing the search engine Quaero named AII has started with an endowment of close to 2 billion USD and with contributions of big names like Thomson, Siemens, France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom as well as some research universities. The supporters of Quaero claim that the ambitious capabilities of its tentacles shall differentiate it –in simple terms besides file, text, images, video and audio files, the planned search engine would allow its users to query based on pictures and sounds. Keywords shall be substituted by query images governed by a process called image mining to do the search. Voice recognition and translation technology shall be included as well. In a nutshell Quaero is intended to be far more than just another would be Google but a leap forward in search technology. Seen at another level, the difference between Quaero and Google is the same as the difference between state funded industrial policy Vs the very embodiment of American free market techno capitalism. Of course while Qquaero is getting ready for lauch, Google would be stretching internally to match and excel by adding the currently missing features.