Very interesting, and thanks for doing this digging Sid. You are handling customer service at Cognition even better than their own Marketing VP. :)
It is an interesting product, and I really am pleased to see word sense disambiguation rolled out in such a visible way, so I think it's a good thing. Ted On Sat, Sep 20, 2008 at 11:51 PM, Siddharth Patwardhan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Ah... they have a little "history" section on their website which seems > to indicate that they employed a bunch of lexicographers to build their > semantic knowledge base. > > "Cognition's core technology, Cognition's Semantic NLPTM, is the > outgrowth of ideas and development work which began over 23 years ago at > IBM where Cognition's founder and CTO, Kathleen Dahlgren, Ph.D., led a > research team to create the first prototype of a "natural language > understanding system." In 1990, Dr. Dahlgren left IBM and formed a new > company called Intelligent Text Processing (ITP). ITP applied for and > won an innovative research grant with the Small Business Administration. > This funding enabled the company to develop a commercial prototype of > what would become Cognition's Semantic NLP. That work won a Small > Business Innovation Research (SBIR) award for excellence in 1995. In > 1998, ITP was awarded a patent on a component of the technology. > > During this development period, ITP assembled a large research group of > over 30 people, some of whom were lexicographers dedicated to building > the huge computational English dictionary and semantic databases which > are the underpinnings of the current technology. In addition, a core > team of linguists was brought together to create a powerful research > group, including Dr. Karen Wallace and Dr. Daniel Albro, both > computational linguists. > > Unfortunately, ITP did not survive the dot-com meltdown and closed its > doors in 2002. In 2004, a new company, Cognition Technologies, was > formed by Dr. Dahlgren and her team which would carry on the legacy (and > the technology development). Funded by angel investors, including the > Southern California Tech Coast Angels, the Company has spent the past > four years advancing the technology and launching a suite of > commercialized applications and live demonstration sites. In January of > 2006, Scott Jarus, former chief executive of j2 Global/eFax (NASDAQ: > JCOM], joined the company both as an investor and CEO. His mission is to > leverage the technology as the next evolution in Natural Language > Processing capability, and to fully develop a successful technology > licensing business. > > Cognition Technologies was originally named MeaningMasterTM, and then > Quester, before settling on its current name." > > On Thu, 2008-09-18 at 11:42 -0500, Ted Pedersen wrote: >> Sigh, clever aren't they? >> >> ....I should have gone on to mention that being a linguist certainly >> does not mean you are a lexicographer, but oh well...I can only bear >> so much cuteness... >> >> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- >> From: Ted Pedersen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> Date: Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 11:38 AM >> Subject: Re: Contact Request >> To: Tad Benson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> >> >> Hi Tad, >> >> I see. I'm not sure you are taking my question seriously, but thanks >> all the same. >> >> Cordially, >> Ted >> >> On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 11:12 AM, Tad Benson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> wrote: >> > Hi Ted, >> > >> > Thanks for your comment. Our CTO, a Ph.D. linguist, and team wrote >> > their own definitions. Doubtless with the assistance of a dictionary. >> > :) >> > >> > --Tad >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > --- Contact Info ----------------------------------------- >> > User: Ted Pedersen >> > User Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >> > Company Name: >> > Address: >> > Project: >> > Time: Thu Sep 18 06:52:15 2008 >> > Comments: Very interesting product. I was where you get the >> > meanings you assign to a users query. Did you write all of your own >> > definitions, or do those come from some existing resource? >> > >> > Thanks! >> > Ted >> > >> > >> >> >> >> -- >> Ted Pedersen >> http://www.d.umn.edu/~tpederse >> >> >> > > -- Ted Pedersen http://www.d.umn.edu/~tpederse
