38 InformationToday
June 2010 www.infotoday.com
Database Review
hakia Gets
Serious With
Semantic Search
by MICK O’LEARY |
I
’ve had a casual interest in the mysterious world of semantic search for
a long time. Semantic search engines follow a completely different prin-
ciple than Google and its followers. Whereas Google’s basic method is
to measure a site’s popularity and importance by the number of links to the
Spring Design Ships Alex eReader
site, semantic search engines analyze the language of a search query in the Spring Design is shipping
context of an entire document. The intent is to attain greater relevance by the dual-screen Alex eReader,
associating the query with related language, or “meaning,” in the document. an ebook platform that sup-
hakia is a leading and much talked about semantic search engine. A hakia ports ebooks as well as PDF
search analyzes language but not with old-fashioned methods such as term files, HTML, Wi-Fi connec-
counting and matching. Instead, hakia analyzes a document by extracting tivity with support for web
terms and term sequences that represent its meaning. These are associated browsing and email, and other
with synonymous language so that a hakia record represents the content of multimedia applications. The
a document beyond its literal language. These prepared analytics are device, which weighs 11 oz.,
matched with query terms, which (presumably) lets hakia achieve greater is based on Google’s Android
relevance than would be possible by simple, term-for-term matching. A full platform. Spring also plans
explanation is available on hakia’s site. to announce multilanguage
Founded in 2004 with venture capital support, hakia recently graduated versions of Alex, including
from beta and became a full-fledged search engine with expanded capabil- Chinese, Russian, Korean,
ities. Does this mean that the shadowy realm of semantic search is ready and Hebrew.
for prime time? Is hakia a Google killer? Let the tests begin. Spring also reported that Grammata, a Spanish company specializing in the de-
sign, content, and sale of e-readers, will partner with Spring to open an ebookstore
and sell the Alex eReader in Spain online and in retail stores this summer.
hakia Search Basics Source: Spring Design, Inc. (www.springdesign.com)
hakia’s general release expanded the site’s ability to search web content.
The service returns 10 individual sets of search results: open web, galleries
(subject categorized results), credible sources, PubMed, news, blogs, Twit- Wall Street Journal Professional
ter, Wikipedia, images, and videos. The different search results are displayed
individually in 10 separate windows. The open web search returns a maxi-
Edition Launches for Consumers
mum of about 50 hits, while the other types return a maximum of 10. Not Dow Jones & Co. has released the consumer version of The Wall Street Journal
all of these searches are done for each query since hakia can “sense” when Professional Edition. The product combines the news coverage and analysis of