Ronald Kaplan, Search Engines, and Powerset
Michael Liedtke, reporting in the Chicago Tribune, recently wrote an article entitled "Search Startup Ready to Challenge Google." The article concerns the work of Ronald Kaplan who is the Palo Alto Research Center's (PARC's) "top natural-language specialist," a researcher at the Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI), and the chief technology and scientific officer at Powerset, a company developing a natural-language search engine.
Whereas Google, Yahoo!, and others search by key word, the technologies being developed by PARC and Powerset are meant to allow for natural-language searches. For instance, suppose you wanted to know who distributes the Center for the Study of Language and Information's Intelligent Linguistic Architectures: Variations on Themes by Ronald M. Kaplan. Rather than entering a key word search similar to, "CSLI distributor books Kaplan" to find out who distributes the Center for the Study of Language and Information's books, one would hopefully be able to enter, "Who distributes CSLI's books?" or, "Who distributes CSLI's Intelligent Linguistic Architectures?"
The Tribune article notes that natural-language search engines have struggled in the past. Ask Jeeves, for instance, began as a natural-language engine, but quickly shifted to keywords (and changed its name to Ask.com). Others also point out that Powerset will have to be able to deal with synonyms and the multifarious ways in which questions can be phrased.
In case you would like to know more about Ronald Kaplan's research, the University of Chicago Press distributes a few relevant titles from the Center for the Study of Language and Information.
Formal Issues in Lexical-Functional Grammar, part of CSLI's series of "Lecture Notes"