Thanks to Moore’s law, the remarkable evolution of digital technology continues at a rapid pace. However, the faster processors get, the more heat they give off (ever put your hand on the side of your laptop? There’s a nice, very noticeable stream of warm air coming through the louvered opening). This problem of heat dissipation is a threat to the continued advancement of microprocessor technology and is a very active area of reseach. Here is a simple search I did on “chip cooling”. You can see a very rich result set, comprising relatively unknown start-up companies (Nuventix), novel technical solutions (“ionic wind engine”), a list of prominent experts, innovators and more.
illumin8 results on “chip cooling” search

Intriguing innovative ideas from the annual NY Times “Year in Ideas”:

• wearable air bags (prevent injuries for elderly; also potential for motorcyclists)
• biomechanical energy harvester (strap it on your knee; converts your kinetic energy to power your cellphone or for other uses )
• Brickley engine (novel design dramatically reduces friction, increases fuel efficiency)
• cloth car (body made from a polyurethane-coated Lycra fabric; strong, durable, waterproof–inexpensive and energy efficient plus the car can change shape in response to driving conditions)

www.NY Times Year in Ideas.com

The limits of language are the limits of my world. The limits of keyword search are the limits of my web world. With 7 million new pages being added daily, those limits are becoming more and more apparent. Here is an interesting view of the possible evolution of search from Nova Spivak, CEO of semantic interest networking start-up, Twine

Oh, and a free illumin8 pen to anyone who can guess the author of the first sentence in this post (hint.. a philosopher..).
www.techcrunch.com

We continue to pay close attention to our customers, and we’ve heard a pretty clear desire for a specific technology “landscape” search option. Searching on technology terms was always possible; however, we hadn’t really tuned the semantic engine for these type of searches. Well, with our latest release (Oct. 1) we have done just that. But that’s not all. Here’s a summary of our latest release:

• Search on technology terms (“digital signal processor”, “organic light emitting diode”..) or product categories (“flex fuel vehicle”, “natural toothpaste”..) and discover sellers, users, innovators, experts, and benefits
• New result types that provide more information in the summary view, allowing you to filter and limit results more flexibly
• User Interface enhancements providing better resolution and transparency in the search results
• Nearly half a million technology terms added to the search guide
• Technical improvements allowing you to dispense with the use of search parameters for most queries; just enter the query in the search box and the system returns a rich, relevant set of results

This is probably our most ambitious and extensive release to date! With the technology search refinements, illumin8 can be even more powerful for your research needs. Whether you’re searching for approaches to a tough technical question, or want to see a summary or landscape of a technology, illumin8 can deliver the goods.

We are occassionally asked “What is so special about illumin8?” Here’s an example of some of the magic operating behind the scenes of a typical illumin8 search. Suppose a researcher was investigating the problem of soil erosion. Entering the simple phrase soil erosion in our search box generates a powerful result set with summarized, organized information on relevant products, companies, organizations, authors, and approaches. Quite a bit can be gleaned from just this initial summary overview. And selecting one of the solutions, such as “grass”, lets us see a set of records discussing the use of grass to solve soil erosion. Seems simple, but there is more to this than meets the eye.

First, the user has only entered the phrase soil erosion in the search box (the word “grass” hasn’t been entered). Second, illumin8 automatically understands that soil erosion is a problem to be solved. It searches its database to find all instances where the phrase occurs in the correct problem context. It then finds entities connected with the problem, for example companies or organizations investigating solutions to soil erosion, approaches to solving soil erosion, etc. Finally it combines the results and places them in the proper category.

Let’s look at a record included in the grass solution.

This is a pretty straightforward semantic match with the query. What is even more interesting though, is that the system automatically finds synonyms to “grass” and fuses the records containing them under the “grass” solution. For example, records containing words like pasture, forage, and forage plants are all automatically discovered and included as part of the “grass” solution set. Here is an example:

I hope you can see the power of this technology. Typical search products would not pinpoint the search term in a specific, meaningful role, nor would they extract entities which connect to the term in an intelligent way. But that is what illumin8 does. And it goes further by summarizing, adding synonyms, etc., The benefit is a richer search which finds the right answers in the least amount of time.

Although we do manage to squeeze in vacations, we don’t really slow down too much during the summer. In fact, we’re excited to announce our latest illumin8 release, available today, August 18. This is our third major release since launch last February and each time we are including more of the features and functions our customers are asking for. Key features for this release include:

• Enhanced search input box with option for “advanced” search
• Date filtering for results
• Search within results
• Boolean “not” operator

These enhancements will bring significantly more flexibility and power in creating queries and in working with result sets. But we’re not done yet. We’re already well along the way to our next release and it’s shaping up to be another major step forward! Stay tuned.