A new digital library and search engine created by Penn State researchers now holds more than 1 million journal articles and other scholarly works that can be easily accessed by anyone. CiteSeerX, based in Penn State's College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST), is designed to enhance the dissemination of scientific literature by making papers and other documents easier to locate online. The library provides resources such as algorithms, data, metadata, services, techniques and software that are transferable other digital libraries -- supplying users with more than just an index of search results. The newest version, releases in early 2009, added the capability to search tables. The search engine was developed by C. Lee Giles, David Reese professor of information sciences and technology and Isaac G. Councill, a Penn State Ph.D. recipient. It is based on open-source software, which means it can be adapted as needed, by anyone, to fit users' requirements.
The Wolfram|Alpha Web site went live today, accompanied by a lot of noise and mixed reviews. Most of the hoopla came from people wondering whether the new site, launched by former particle physicist Stephen Wolfram and his eponymous company, will give Google a run for its money. Only time will tell. But Wolfram|Alpha and Google aim to do such different things that the services may ultimately prove to be complementary. Everybody knows Google, but once it was just the little search engine that could. Enter Wolfram|Alpha, touted as a "computational knowledge engine" that searches its own extensive database in an attempt to answer a user's question.
Google is preparing to launch a mobile phone application called Star Droid that can help amateur astronomers identify stars and planets. The search engine software will use GPS technology to compare the position of the phone user with existing maps of space, attaching name tags to the stars and planets that can be seen through the phone's viewfinder. The California-based internet company already offers a Google Sky facility that gives online browsers a map of space similar to its Google Earth and Google Street View services.
A web tool that "could be as important as Google", according to some experts, has been shown off to the public. Wolfram Alpha is the brainchild of British-born physicist Stephen Wolfram. The free program aims to answer questions directly, rather than display web pages in response to a query like a search engine.
A unique virtual world search engine developed by a team of experts at the University is due to gone live. The Meta-Mole, created by the Centre for Design in the Digital Economy (D-LAB) based within the University's Institute of Digital Innovation, will ultimately be a dedicated searchable online resource for the 350 plus virtual worlds currently existing on the Internet.
"We were analysing virtual world platforms and realised that there doesn't appear to be a comprehensive service offering to list and compare key data for major 2D and 3D environments. This surprised us considering the current popularity of virtual worlds. We intend to fill the gap with the Meta-Mole" - Philip McClenaghan, Deputy Director of D-LAB.
The Meta-Mole will help both new and experienced users looking for a virtual world environment as well as platform developers who want to gauge competition.
Google On-Demand Internet search engine Google has launched a feature called On-Demand, which allows users to access new pages more rapidly. Unlike traditional Site Search, which can take days, the new service allows users to index specific pages so they can be found in search within hours.
TinEye Search engine TinEye is an image search engine built by Idée currently in private beta. Give it an image and it will tell you where the image appears on the web. TinEye uses pattern recognition algorithms to find your image on the web without the use of metadata or watermarks.