The European Union is backing Theseus, an alleged Google-Beater search engine to the tune of $250 million, half from public tax funds.
Theseus would incorporate new DRM processes allowing for the automatic creation of metadata for audio, video, 2D and 3D picture files, as well as algorithms for the semantic processing of all multimedia documents.
Semantic Technology
Being developed by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology, the Theseus search engine would utilize semantic technologies capable of recognizing and classifying the content and meaning of virtually any information format used on the Web today and draw intelligent links between them.
Theseus is built on a series of application scenarios named Alexandria, Ordo, Processus, Texo, and Contentus. Medico, the sixth application, establishes image syntax and semantics based on image vocabularies for Computer Aided Diagnosis and other Web medical processes.
Should Google Be Worried
Theseus is more built towards rich media so Google’s traditional web-page search engine won’t be threatened. However, Google has been increasingly developing video.google.com into a fully fledged video search engine.
While Google’s video search is biased towards Google Video and YouTube it does contain content from a variety of sources. Google has been a master at indexing and organizing web pages but when it comes to video it is a tougher challenge. While things are getting better I haven’t yet seen a company organize video content well.
This only means the doors are open for a new video search engine with advanced technology to dominate, the same way Google came from nowhere to dominate the web with it’s innovative search engine back in the late ’90s.
