Now How Will We Find What We Are Looking for on the Web?

Brian Doherty | January 3, 2007

The French government knows what its people need: a new government-funded search engine. The short-sighted Germans, however, after their initial partnership with France on this forward-looking scheme, have now backed out of this plan for European betterment:

Germany and France had initially discussed plans to commit €1 billion to €2 billion, or $1.3 billion to $2.6 billion, over five years to Quaero. The project was to have been paid for by the French and German governments, with contributions from technology companies like Thomson and France Télécom on the west side of the Rhine, and Siemens and Deutsche Telekom to the east.

But never fear, those of you in dire need of a way to find things on the World Wide Web: even if the Merkel regime in Germany has walked away, France will not be discouraged:

French participants in the secretive project, called Quaero, which means "I seek" in Latin, vowed to continue their efforts to develop the search engine, possibly with funding from the European Union.

Full story from the International Herald Tribune. In unrelated news, an obscure American company with the unlikely name "Google" is at a market cap of $145.28 billion.

Hat tip to Manuel Klausner.

Comments

|1.3.07 @ 12:14PM|#

French participants in the secretive project, called Quaero, which means "I seek" in Latin...

Well, there's your problem, France. Using the Romance root language isn't inclusive enough for Germany.

What is "I seek" in Indo-European proto language?

For that matter, what is "Airbus", "boondoggle" and/or "backruptcy" in Indo-European proto language?

|1.3.07 @ 12:19PM|#

"In Germany I think there was also resistance to the idea of a top-down project driven by governments," said Andreas Zeller, chairman of software engineering at the University of Saarland in Saarbrücken, Germany, which supplied advisors to Quaero. "Success in the end is something that can't be planned but is something that begets itself."

Uh... no shit. Apparently that's a revolutionary concept in the Old World.

|1.3.07 @ 12:27PM|#

It would be pretty funny if they start with this project and Google start to hire away their talent. Sooner or later it will have to come to WWIV.

|1.3.07 @ 12:27PM|#

Maybe Mexico will partner with france, if only for me to say "Yo Quaero Taco Bell"

Guy Montag|1.3.07 @ 12:28PM|#

Why on earth do you insist on capitalizing france? The next thing you know there will be a capital I in ireland.

|1.3.07 @ 12:35PM|#

You know Germany will end up doing something. Those shiesse videos aren't going to find themselves, you know.

creech|1.3.07 @ 12:46PM|#

"Google start to hire away their talent."

What talent? This project is obviously being pushed by losers who can't find work with the superb private search engines out there.

|1.3.07 @ 1:27PM|#

In Germany I think there was also resistance to the idea of a top-down project driven by governments.

Turning over a new leaf, I see.

tomWright|1.3.07 @ 3:12PM|#

Seeing as I work on SAP systems, I will miss this idea.

The German version of a search engine would no doubt be highly accurate, and produce far better results than American versions.

Of course, you would need to spend a weekend pouring over manuals and obscure instructions concerning search syntax that would make SQL look like "See Spot Run", that had been translated from German with too much regard for accuracy and not enough for meaning, and then configuring your search for hours, if not days, before it would deign to process it for you.

But the results would be highly accurate.

Larry A|1.3.07 @ 3:15PM|#

Apparently "Voila!" is French for "Look! A wheel! Let's invent our own!"

Guy Montag|1.3.07 @ 3:46PM|#

tomWright,

Um, for some of us SQL is like "See Spot Run" and we NEVER pronounce SQL as 'sequel', it is always S Q L (es que el).

|1.3.07 @ 5:03PM|#

I think, if one must pronounce SQL as a single word, it would be much improved by pronouncing it like "squeal."

Then I could tell my boss:

"I'm SQLing like a stuck pig!"

|1.3.07 @ 6:05PM|#

Select * From tbl_Pedant a Where (a.pronounce = 'Sequel' and a.pronounce != 'Es Que El')

grylliade|1.3.07 @ 7:53PM|#

Um, for some of us SQL is like "See Spot Run" and we NEVER pronounce SQL as 'sequel', it is always S Q L (es que el).

Wow, your programming dick is huge! ;-)

What is "I seek" in Indo-European proto language?

*sehg- (with the h being a laryngeal fricative of uncertain exact pronunciation; the IPA symbol probably wouldn't show up on your browser even if I knew what it was). So "I seek" would be something along the lines of "sehgo."

tomWright|1.3.07 @ 8:49PM|#

Guy Montag:

Um, for some of us SQL is like "See Spot Run" and we NEVER pronounce SQL as 'sequel', it is always S Q L (es que el).

As I was addressing search engines used by the general population, and only using embedded EXEC-SQL statements addressing :HOST variables, or even the usage of DDL to build or alter databases, as an example of what might be simpler than the interface to a search engine produced by German propeller-heads such as those that designed SAP, in a way as to disparage the mere IDEA of Germans trying to create a socialist search engine used by people that can barely find the [ANY]-key, my comment stands.

Now why don't you go be a nice little geek and busy yourself by debugging an IBM DB2-ZOS unload statement using a 6-table inner join utilizing correlated sub-selects and a UNION for not working properly. Or better yet, debug an IMS to DB2 COBOL propagator that is intermittently utilizing an inefficient COMMIT interval causing the nightly 100,000,000+- row insert time on a 4 Terrabyte partitioned and instanced database to increase an unacceptable amount.

That should keep you busy and out of the adults way for a while.

/ththppppth!

Guy Montag|1.4.07 @ 9:40AM|#

tomWright,

I am =! a kernel hacker. Your lack of civility == disturbing.

tomWright|1.4.07 @ 2:09PM|#

Guy,

Since everything I mentioned above are things I have done as an applications developer, utilizing COBOL application programs, embedded SQL, JCL and standard utilities, you thinking that has anything to do with kernel hacking says a lot.

So far as civility goes, civility, like respect, is a two way street.