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New Search Engine Tackles Contextual Discovery

  • By Dian Schaffhauser
  • 09/30/10

Research between the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland and the St. Petersburg State University in Russia has resulted in the commercial launch of a new search engine that its developers say more closely works like the human mind in how it locates information. Sophia Search from a company of the same name features a Semiotic-based linguistic model, in which the search engine, named the Contextual Discovery Engine, figures out the themes and relationships among terms in unstructured content. Search results can identify relevant results based on context--not just keyword matches--by examining contents of a document as well as the files by which it's surrounded.

According to the company, the application, which starts at $30,000, has three unique aspects. The product discovers themes and intrinsic relationships behind information without relying on pre-existing taxonomies or ontologies to uncover and extract relevant results. It identifies duplicates and near duplicates to minimize the amount of information that needs to be stored or managed. And it provides contextual data that helps users optimize information for more accurate search, analytics, and compliance.

"Organizations seek effective solutions to discover, recover, and leverage enterprise information for increased compliance and information optimization," said CEO David Patterson. "We designed Sophia Search to identify and understand information based on its context so that more relevant information can be easily discovered."

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

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