Google Licenses Australian Algorithm
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Australia rules -- or at least it does when it comes to Google's latest move. The search engine gained a new employee and the right to use the algorithm he developed at the University of New South Wales. What does it do? And what might Google be getting out of the deal?
For something that may have technically happened six weeks ago, it certainly set the press buzzing. Then again, how often does a 26-year-old graduate student working on his PhD in Australia get hired by the world’s best-known search engine? And that for his work on an algorithm that many insist will revolutionize search?
Anyone who has been covering search engine news for a while will tell you that claims of revolution are usually (though not always) overblown. See the word “revolution” paired with search technology and you’d be smart to mentally substitute “incremental improvement.” But even that much holds the promise of making search faster, easier, and more accurate – and that’s a big help when you spend a lot of time searching.
So who is this graduate student, and why is Google so interested? His name is Ori Allon, and he hails from Israel. When Google found him, however, he was working on his doctorate at the University of New South Wales. A press release from the university dated September 2005 describes the technology, dubbed the Orion search engine, in far more detail that Allon is legally permitted to go into now. Though employed by Google, he can’t even reveal his job title.
So what could a graduate student working for a year in a fourth-floor room with five servers accomplish? Allon came to Sydney to work on a project run by Dr. Eric Martin, of the university’s computer science department. Martin’s project aimed to build a better search engine. And according to the scientist, “What others would have taken two or three years to do, [Allon] did in six months.”
The project is supposed to be finished sometime in the next 12 to 18 months. The university will retain ownership of Orion, because it was developed within its PhD program. It will probably receive royalties from Google for licensing the technology; some analysts figure it could run into the millions. Nobody really knows how much because nobody who has information about the actual deal is talking.
Next: What Does it Do? >>
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