Digging for Facts

I wanted to focus on one article this week which is From Babel to Knowledge by Daniel Cohen.  The main reason for doing so is the fact that in my recent research on a particular obscure historian, most of my hours of research have been fruitless and redundant.  Most of my frustration stems from the fact that search engines such has Google and Bing retrieve lots of the same information over and over, and some sites that are not even relevant.  So much digging for information I know exist on the Internet made me really relate to Cohen's article.

I realize that research before the Internet was more intense and difficult, however now that we have the technology, Cohen's idea about a more effective way to search for information and to eliminate the extra "noise" holds great potential.  For those that want specific information in the form of a question, his H-Bot site makes more sense than having to search for the wanted subject then having to scan all the sites for the exact question you are looking for.  Using natural language to find an answer makes much more sense like phrasing "When was the Empire State Building erected?"  Instead we have been trained to first search for "Empire State Building", then look for the answer within the search results.  The potential for this kind of research is exciting and should be looked at seriously.  If a search engine of this kind were to grow, it has the chance to become bigger than Google or Bing.  There is a great need for a simpler and more productive way to search for information on the Internet, and there is no doubt that this type of query system would become the leader in academic research.