DARPA Seeks the Holy Grail of Search Engines

coondoggie writes "The scientists at DARPA say the current methods of searching the Internet for all manner of information just won't cut it in the future. Today the agency announced a program that would aim to totally revamp Internet search and 'revolutionize the discovery, organization and presentation of search results.' Specifically, the goal of DARPA's Memex program is to develop software that will enable domain-specific indexing of public web content and domain-specific search capabilities. According to the agency the technologies developed in the program will also provide the mechanisms for content discovery, information extraction, information retrieval, user collaboration, and other areas needed to address distributed aggregation, analysis, and presentation of web content."

They might want to be careful.

[mmell]

First, remember that this is essentially where the world wide web of internetworked computers began. The words 'unintended consequences' come screaming to mind . . . (although I have to admit - I love those wicked pipes!)

Second - we (common netizens) may welcome the sort of information availability DARPA is seeking - sort of like the scifi future where you just ask the nearest terminal whatever you want to know and magically get the answer you need - but there are lots of bad people still running around on this planet (scamsters, governments, jilted ex-lovers, religious extremists, etc.). The problem isn't the technology, the problem is our ability to handle it.

I very much suspect DARPA may be onto something. I wonder if it will be as beneficial as the WWW has been.