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Microsoft Develops New Search Technology

Being the world`s largest software provider, Microsoft`s researchers are able to try out all sorts of computing ideas without have to worry about shipping deadlines or market pressure. Microsoft researchers are currently working on a new search technology for the internet, called Wild Thing. A search technology so dubbed because it allows for wildcard searches on MSN by using only a few characters.

For example, if you find it difficult to spell the last name of California`s actor-turned-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, entering "ar* sc*w" will find him. An entry of "ar* sc*w mo*" will find films from the former Terminator. Microsoft originally devised Wild Thing for mobile users, so they would not have to enter so many characters on a cell phone keypad, but the company decided to make it available for everyone after seeing how useful it was. "We wanted to get away from something that forced you to type so many characters," said Bo Thiesson, a researcher at the lab. "But it turned out so useful that even if you have a real keyboard it can save you a lot of typing and make Internet searches a lot faster."

Wild Thing uses the MSN search indexes and rankings, so the more popular the subject matter, the faster you will find it and the less characters needed. Thiesson expects users will eventually get used to the shorthand method of searching. "If you don`t get it right, you have to put in more characters, and eventually you adapt to it, so you know how many characters you need to input it because you know how popular your search is," he said. This technology is based on the rather obvious observation that friends are likely to share common interests. What you and your friends recommend is likely to be more relevant to you, so you would like to see those results before they`re returned by the search engine and eliminate false hits, explained Lidong Zhou, a researcher for Microsoft.