International
Google acquires technology that may revolutionise web search
By Finfacts Team
Apr 11, 2006, 07:26

Ori Allon Credit: UNSW

The search engine has won against rival bids from Yahoo and Microsoft for the technology, developed at the University of New South Wales in Australia.

The Orion search engine is the work of Ori Allon, a 26-year-old PhD student, inspired by an idea a year ago from his supervisor Dr Eric Martin. Allon is understood to have moved to Google's headquarters in Silicon Valley to develop the algorithm further.

Google has made no formal announcement about the acquisition but the university, in a press release last year, said the technology could revolutionise search engines.

Allon said results to queries were displayed in the form of expanded text extracts "giving you the relevant information without having to go to the web-site".

The University of New South Wales will retain ownership of the technology as it was developed within its research facilities.

The University of New South Wales said last year that it has patented a new way of exploring the web that could revolutionise existing search engines.

Developed by Ori Allon, the Orion© search engine is designed to complement searches conducted on services such as Google, Yahoo or MSN Search.

Search engines find pages on which keywords occur. Sometimes these pages are important to the topic. Other times they are not.

Orion© finds pages where the content is about a topic strongly related to the key word. It then returns a section of the page, and lists other topics related to the key word so the user can pick the most relevant.

"The results to the query are displayed immediately in the form of expanded text extracts, giving you the relevant information without having to go to the website - although you still have that option if you wish," said Israeli-born Allon, who completed a Bachelor and Masters degree at Monash University in Melbourne before moving to UNSW for his PhD.

"By displaying results to other associated key words directly related to your search topic, you gain additional pertinent information that you might not have originally conceived, thus offering an expert search without having an expert's knowledge.

"Take a search such as the American Revolution as an example of how the system works. Orion© would bring up results with extracts containing this phrase. But it would also give results for American History, George Washington, American Revolutionary War, Declaration of Independence, Boston Tea Party and more. You obtain much more valuable information from every search."

The idea of finding information without having to click through to websites came from Allon's supervisor, Eric Martin, back in March this year. "I provided the spark. But it is Ori who has developed this through his amazing creativity and sheer hard work over these past months," said Mr Martin.

Andrew Stead of New South Innovations, the technology transfer company within UNSW, says he is confident that Orion© will fill a gap in the market noted by Microsoft founder Bill Gates.

"Bill Gates was recently quoted in Forbes magazine as saying that we need to take the search way beyond how people think of it today. We believe that Orion© will do that," he said. 

"It's a great day for UNSW," says Professor Paul Compton, head of the School of Computer Science and Engineering said today.

"There has been a lot of talk about computing students needing soft skills. Soft skills are important for a lot of students, but there is also an assumption behind this that all Australia can do is to apply soft skills to technology from elsewhere.

"At UNSW we have a different approach. We have the best students in the world in Computer Science who are outstanding - they win international competitions - as well as work for Google. Our goal is to train these students to be the inventors of new technologies. If they want soft skills they can certainly do a double degree - but our focus is on deep technical problem solving and creativity - and no compromises in this. Australians can do as well as anyone.

"Googlemaps is also an Australian invention and the reason Google has a research laboratory in Sydney is the inventors did not want to move to the US."

Though working in Mountain View, California, Ori Allon is still a full-time student at the University and will continue working on the invention with Dr Martin for his PhD.