Microsoft testing new Internet search engine: Kumo

Reportedly this new search engine is based on semantic technology and able to distinguish the relationship between words and sentences.

Have you heard any buzz about the new search engine or is this just more hype about the same old thing?

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Microsoft on Tuesday confirmed it is testing a new Internet search engine it hopes will power the US software giant out of distant third place in a market dominated by Google.

A Kumo.com search engine being privately tested by Microsoft workers is reportedly based on semantic technology that enables it to understand sentences and relationships between words.

Current search engines, including software used by Google, rely on matching words typed into search boxes with those found at websites and in data found on the Internet.

"There's a good deal of excitement brewing over this test, both internally and externally, which we're always glad to see," Microsoft Live Search general manager Mike Nichols wrote in an online message.

"Our hope is that our employees will give us great feedback on our new features and that it all becomes part of the external experience soon." FULL STORY

This is the future of SE technology, but from what I know it has yet to go a long way before it will be usable for public. I'm sure google and other are working hard on semantics too.

Google already does this. I saw an interview with Matt Cutts about a year ago and they even gave specific examples of how different results were generated using the same word in two different contexts.

Of course, MS lives on the 'embrace and extend' philosophy where they embrace successful ideas and extend them with proprietary and secret code which ends up relying on other MS stuff to develop or work. But I would be surprised if they manage to pull it off, after all they have tried again and again to get search working, with live being their last of many mediocre offerings.

sounds interesting i will have to check it out that might become the next google maybe