RESHARED POST FROM PETER SUBER

By matching search queries with information from sensors and cross-referencing data from social networks such as Twitter, users will be able to receive detailed responses to questions such as ‘What part of the city hosts live music events which my friends have been to recently?’ or ‘How busy is the city centre?’ Currently, standard search engines such as Google are not able to answer search queries of this type.

Dr Iadh Ounis, of the University of Glasgow’s School of Computing Science, said: “The SMART project will be built upon an open-source search engine technology known as Terrier we have been developing at the University since 2004, and we’re pleased to be involved in this innovative research initiative.

“The SMART engine will be able to answer high-level queries by automatically identifying cameras, microphones and other sensors that can contribute to the query, then synthesising results stemming from distributed sources in an intelligent way.
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The problem, of course, is that these distributed sensors are usually proprietary with restricted access. These restrictions might invalidate this kind of technology (which is essential for a functional #attentioneconomy )before it even gets off the ground.

via +Anthony Beavers

Peter Suber originally shared this post:

Searching the network of sensors

The article focuses on the implications for city management. But think about the implications for data collection and data analysis in meteorology, ecology, economics, and any other science that invents a use for real-world sensors.

Researchers developing new type of internet search engine

(Phys.org) — Computer scientists at the University of Glasgow are participating in a new project to develop a search engine which will draw its results from sensors located in the physical world.