Google acquires new search algorithm

An advanced text search algorithm developed by an Israeli student at the Univeristy of New South Wales in Australia has been bought by internet search engine Google.

Speculation had indicated that rival search engine operators Yahoo! and Microsoft had also tried to acquire the algorithm, which was developed by Ori Alon, a doctoral student in computer science.

The new search tool, called Orion, will hopefully expand the function of search engines to make searches less time consuming and more specific.

Creator Ori Alon explained how the search engine would work to Israeli newspaper Haaretz: 'If you search information on the War of Independence, you'll receive a list of related words, like Etzel, Palmach, Ben-Gurion. The text will only appear on the results page if enough words relevant to the search and the link between them is reasonable. Orion also rates the texts by quality of the site in which they appear.'

The patent for the algorithm was registered six months ago and the univeristy will retain the ownership rights to Orion, which looks set to bring it several million dollars following the deal with Google.

http://tech.monstersandcritics.com/news/article_1154043.php/Google_acquires_new_search_algorithm