Powerset wants to change the meaning of Web search…literally! The company unveiled on Monday the public availability of its latest beta product, a search engine that delivers query results based on meaning, rather than words, delivering valid answers and improving the search experience, the company unveiled on Monday.
Following multiple reports that several buyers are interested in the acquisition of Powerset, including Microsoft, the company doesn’t want to sit and wait for that to happen. Instead, they chose to launch a new search engine to revolutionize users’ search experience. The question is: will they go as far as Google?
That is not something we’ll see anytime soon, but things look promising. Powerset is taking just one little step into the search “jungle” for now, delivering only results from Wikipedia and Freebase, with the help of its natural language technology, based on patents licensed from PARC.
“We have focused on making Powerset able to read and understand documents on the web as part of a broader vision to change the way people interact with technology, Scott Prevost, general manager and director of product, said in a statement. “This first product will make people’s search experiences on Wikipedia and Freebase easier, more natural and more relevant.”
It’s a promising start for the new Powerset Wikipedia search engine, a tool that offers a semantic search into articles, providing a faster, more relevant way of searching and navigating the Web, and most importantly, delivering more accurate search results.
“Our first product has only touched the surface of what our technology will allow,” Lorenzo Thione, co-founder and product architect, said in a statement. “Our team of computational linguists, computer scientists and engineers, together with the PARC technology we licensed, has allowed us to develop a solid platform to begin to change the way people consume content.”