Hakia's semantic search: Do we need it?

Google gives us convenience like never before -- surely something else would emerge but semantic search engines are laying foundation on Google where indexing various sources for answers but may be we need something else to cater our needs -- a different approach!

Stephen, interesting item on Hakia!

As far as I understand, Hakia’s semantic search solution is still based on keyword recognition (like solutions of other players – Google, FAST or Convera).

But what if the keyword is misspelled? Will the semantic search work in this case? Or if you do not know exactly what you are looking for, just have a vague notion?

There are other solutions out there that deal with this problem imitating the work of human brain (we don’t look for keywords, we look for patterns).

For example, Brainware possesses a unique, patent-protected technology that sets it apart from other data capture and enterprise search solutions providers.

Its products are powered by the world's only engine that does not rely on exact definitions to rapidly sift through mountains of unstructured data. Brainware's technology allows it to recognize and find data through inexact definitions, patterns and context, mimicking the way the human brain processes and sorts information.

Here’s a case study showing Brainware in action:
Fulbright & Jaworski: Leading Law Firm Searches And Shares Knowledge Base Smarter, More Accurately
http://www.brainware.com/brain_case_lawfirm.php

yegor: what you just described is the same in any "smart search"

Any extension to popular IR research is knowing _which_ system to use _when_, and building/learning up lots of parsing rules, thesauri and other supporting processes.

your technology may well be superior in its concept matching capacity, but is it as fast as web search that needs to service random requests in a fraction of a second? Is it running live on the web right now servicing thousands of barely cachable requests every second?

I doubt it. In fact the report you linked to says "under 5 seconds," that isn't acceptable in web search.

Please be careful not to mix web and enterprise IR systems. They are two completely different topics.

Patent flaunting is ridiculous too :)

David,

THankks for the inputs! Where can I read more about the 'smart search' concept?