Set to compete with Google Desktop Search and its Sidebar feature, Watson 2.0 is a sidebar that is supposed to act something like an intelligent assistant. It watches the programs you are using for keywords, and detects the titles of documents. Based on that information, it generates search results on what it thinks you will need. It promises to let you search outside the box, delivering results to you rather than you needing to request them.
Researchers at universities must need to sift through tons of data quickly, which inspires so much progress in search technologies. The folks at Northwestern University developed the contextual search technology being used by Intellext for its Watson 2.0.
One interesting point is that Watson 2.0 is not supposed to raise the privacy concerns that Google Deskbar Search and its Sidebar raise. Al Wasserberger, CEO of Intellext, insists that “Nothing gets sent to our servers.” People using Google’s Sidebar can only customize it if they agree to allow the program to send information to Google servers about what they are viewing on their computers.
Even without the privacy concerns, there is certainly room for improvement with Google’s Sidebar. A number of people who use it have complained of receiving less than relevant results. For instance, Greg Sterling, managing editor at the Kelsey Group, was optimistic about its chances to improve, but he clearly wasn’t satisfied with it now: “There’s a lot of miscellany in there that’s not particularly relevant…Over time it will get better. I would give it a six on a scale of 10.”
Anyone whose job depends on being able to get relevant information, especially news, fairly quickly would be interested in a product that can help them find what they need (or even anticipate those needs). One would think that such a program would find its natural market among reporters, analysts, and technology writers, among others. Hmmm, that doesn’t describe anyone we know, does it? Always looking for ways to get our job done better and faster, we decided to stop by Intellext’s website and try out this new marvel of search.
Intellext charges a monthly fee for using Watson 2.0, but invites users to take its product on a week-long test drive. The page from which you can download the free trial explains that the application is 6 MB large and lists system requirements:
13MB on disk
Windows 2000, XP or 2003
Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher
256MB of RAM or greater
766MHz CPU or greater
Also, while a broadband connection is not necessary, Intellext highly recommends it.
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