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Tag: knowledge engine

  • Wikimedia Works On Search Improvements, Says It’s Not Competing with Google [Updated]

    Wikimedia Works On Search Improvements, Says It’s Not Competing with Google [Updated]

    Note: This article has been updated with clarification directly from The Wikimedia Foundation.

    It would appear that there is a new search engine from Wikipedia in the works – one that would surface public information from Wikipedia and its sister free knowledge projects.

    “We continually work to improve how people can find and engage with this content, including but not limited to searching on Wikipedia. This is in keeping with Wikimedia’s commitment to operating in free and open way, without running ads and while protecting user privacy,” a representative from the Wikimedia Foundation tells us in an email.

    The Wikimedia Foundation was awarded a $250,000 grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation in September. This is for the initial phase of a project with a total budget of roughly $2.5 million.

    “We should also clarify that the results of this first discovery phase of prototyping and community dialogue will help determine our next steps in development of technology in collaboration with the community,” the representative said, adding that the budget is based on the budget for their planned work to “improve a variety of knowledge discovery functions on Wikipedia.”

    “We do not have plans to build a new search engine: our objective is to improve the existing search experience on Wikimedia projects and help people find content across the projects,” they said. “As the first phase of undertaking these improvements we received a grant to research how people access and interact with Wikimedia content. The grant agreement outlines a general direction, but the results of this first phase of prototyping and community dialogues will determine our next steps, in collaboration with the Wikimedia community.”

    “More generally, I also wanted to clarify one issue that’s been a point of discussion: whether or not we intend to compete in the area of search with this project. This project does not aim to compete with Google or any other company. As a non-profit, our mission is to support how people interact with and discover free educational content on Wikimedia projects. Everything we create is under an open license and can be used and reused freely by everyone and for any purpose. This means everyone, including commercial entities, can and do use results of our work. This is made clear in our product roadmap, which includes releasing our findings publicly.”

    A document from the Knight Foundation from September was just recently made public. In that, the project is described. It’s called “Knowledge Engine,” which is obviously very Google-esque. According to the document, this has four stages: discovery, advisory, community, and extension. Each will take about 18 months, it says.

    They’re also supposedly conducting tests with potential users, creating a public-facing dashboard of key KPIs, and measuring user satisfaction, load time, API usage, etc.

    The Knight Foundation’s funding is specifically for the discovery stage, which began around the time of the document. It said that over the following six months, Wikimedia would seek to answer questions like: Would users go to Wikipedia if it were an open channel beyond an encylopedia?” and “Can the Wikimedia Foundation get Wikipedia embedded in carriers and Original Equipment Manufacturers?”

    That second question is particular interesting.

    “Knowledge Engine by Wikipedia will create a model for surfacing high quality, public information on the Internet,” the document says. “The project will pave the way for non-commercial information to be found and utilized by Internet users.”

    It says that after 12 months, the Wikimedia Foundation will assess the progress and at the conclusion of the grant, the team will have sent the groundwork for the project to proceed to the second stage.

    You can read through the full document here.

    Last week, Wikimedia said Super Bowl searches show “Wikipedia is the second screen.” They pointed to the large search volume and clicks leading to Wikipedia pages related to players and the game.

  • Know Exactly Where That Big Ol’ Jet Airliner’s Headed, Thanks To Wolfram Alpha

    Using data from the Federal Aviation Administration, knowledge engine Wolfram Alpha is making it easier to learn about all of those planes flying over your head at any given time. If you’ve ever seen a plane soaring through the sky and thought about its destination or its place of departure, this is the tool for you.

    The broadest and possibly the most whimsical way in which Wolfram Alpha’s FAA data can be used is with the search query “flights overhead.” Wolfram Alpha will then provide you with information on just that – all the flights that are currently flying over you head (with a small 5-minute delay due to FAA restrictions).

    If you’re on a mobile device, then it will use your location data to pinpoint exactly where you are and give you the most accurate portrait of the flights in your area. If you’re searching from a desktop, it will do its best to pin a location from your browser.

    The “flights overhead” query gives you a list of all the flights that could technically be seen from your location (on a clear day of course). Not only that, but it lets you knows things like the plane’s altitude, flight angle and model as well as provides a sky map for the more visually oriented folks out there.

    You can click on any of the flights listed to find out more information about them like departure time and location, destination time and location, flight capacity, flight altitude over time, and even the history of that particular plane (previous flights). Right now, the Pittsbirgh Jet Center flight 79 that’s flying over my head left from Dupage Airport in West Chicago and is en route to Charleston, South Carolina. It’s a Cessna citation CJ3 with two jet engines and is carrying anywhere from 3 to 9 people. Cool huh?

    The blog post about this new feature talks about some of the more practical uses, other than just knowing about the planes flying in your vicinity. One of the cooler uses of the information is to find out exactly where you were when you took that picture from your window seat. Once your plane lands, you can plug the time of your photo, along with the flight number, date, and airline information into the engine. This will give you a pretty accurate description of what you were flying over when you snapped your mid-air shot.

    Since all the info comes from the FAA, this real-time flight search will only work with planes having at least one stop in the U.S.

    I guess it will always be fun to look up in the sky and imagine where a plane is headed and where it came from. You can then begin to imagine the people on that plane, and their lives, and why they are headed to wherever they are going. It’s a daydreamy type of activity, but one that tons of people have done, I assure you.

    Now, if you want, you can know for certain where those sky ships are headed.