Wikimedia Foundation takes aim at Google search with $3.5m 'Knowledge Engine'
Wikipedia's parent organisation, the Wikimedia Foundation, had in September been awarded a $US250,000 ($A350,000) grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation < https://m.wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/File:Knowledge_engine_grant_agreement.pdf>, but only publicised the grant in the past week. The grant is to be used "To advance new models for finding information by supporting stage one development of the Knowledge Engine by Wikipedia," the Knight Foundation's grant letter to the Wikimedia Foundation read. *Wikimedia's grant application says that "commercial search engines dominate search-engine use of the internet, and they're employing proprietary technologies to consolidate channels of access to the internet's knowledge and information." *Reports from digital analytics company comScore put Google's market share at about 67 per cent, with Microsoft's Bing in second place at about 20 per cent and Yahoo third with about 10 per cent. The grant application says the Knowledge Engine will respond by emphasising six key areas: 1. Publication curation mechanisms for quality 2. Transparency, telling users exactly how the information originated 3. Open data access to metadata, giving users the exact data source of the information 4. Protected user privacy, with their searching protected by strict privacy controls 5. No advertising, which assures the free flow of information and a complete separation from commercial interests 6. Internalisation, which emphasises community building and the sharing of information Wikimedia claims the Knowledge Engine will be "the internet's first transparent search engine". A post on the Knight Foundation's website says funding "will support an investigation of search and browsing on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects, with the goal of improving how people explore and acquire information. "Through this project, the Wikimedia Foundation will test ways to make relevant information more accessible and investigate transparent methods for collecting, connecting and retrieving this information consistent with the values of Wikipedia and the open Web," the foundation says. Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects will serve as testing grounds for "six months of deep research, testing, and prototyping on user search habits and practices". Results will be shared and discussed publicly, the foundation says. read rest of article on http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-15/wikimedia-foundation-aims-to-take-on-google-in-search/7168840 IT for Change, Bengaluru www.ITforChange.net -- 1. If a teacher wants to join STF, visit http://karnatakaeducation.org.in/KOER/en/index.php/Become_a_STF_groups_member 2. For STF training, visit KOER - http://karnatakaeducation.org.in/KOER/en/index.php 4. For Ubuntu 14.04 installation, visit http://karnatakaeducation.org.in/KOER/en/index.php/Kalpavriksha 4. For doubts on Ubuntu, public software, visit http://karnatakaeducation.org.in/KOER/en/index.php/Frequently_Asked_Questions 5. Are you using pirated software? Use Sarvajanika Tantramsha, see http://karnatakaeducation.org.in/KOER/en/index.php/Why_public_software ಸಾರ್ವಜನಿಕ ಇಲಾಖೆಗೆ ಸಾರ್ವಜನಿಕ ತಂತ್ರಾಂಶ --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Maths & Science STF" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/mathssciencestf. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
