3 ms·

The engineering used to simply parse the queries is amazing. It's lightyears beyond Google's NLP.

by warfangle 17y ago

mojuba 17y ago
What exactly did amaze you in this demo?
- kyro 17y ago
  One thing that amazed me was when he searched for that DNA sequence, and then traversed up and down a chromosome. Mapping out the human genome has been done for some time, but I've never actually seen any sort of interface or app that hooks into this sort of data, and this does. I can't tell you what revolutionary applications or mashups will make use of this data, but I can definitely say I was 'amazed' when he did demo that part of alpha. It's like I'm searching my body!!!
  - mojuba 17y ago
    warfangle said "It's lightyears beyond Google's NLP". I'm afraid there's nothing NLP about WA, neither Google. It's just very basic parsing in both cases, if you know what I mean. Not only chromosome traversing, there were a few other impressive things in the demo, but that's some level of structurization and formalization of certain knowledge domains done by respective professionals. Good job. No, very impressive, stunningly scrupulous job. But I see nothing revolutionary (edit:) technology-wise.
    - sundeep 17y ago
      I'm afraid there's nothing NLP about WA, neither Google You might be mistaken there, Google very much uses NLP , though at the backend and not at the user interface. Norvig himself said so ... I cant find to the exact talk where he said this( It was one moderated by Nova Spivak,if I can remember correctly) but here's a link to a TC article that discusses this ..http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/12/18/googles-norvig-is-down-on-natural-language-search/ http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/12/18/googles-norvig-is-down-...
- auston 17y ago
  every single query.
axod 17y ago
Do people actually use natural language in search queries though? I don't think they do. Technically impressive? yes. Useful for most people? nah.
- abossy 17y ago
  You may not, since you understand the concept of natural language in the context of search queries and that it's a hard problem. I would wager that a non-trival subset of users in fact do use natural language in searches, especially in the context of the 5 w's; "what is...", "where is...", "when is...", etc. These aren't technically more difficult to understand than your average search query and I would imagine with the volume of google's searches, they do a good job of dealing with these types.
  - lena 17y ago
    I have a weight loss website. While most people arrive at my site with queries like "calories in apple pie", a significant number of people use queries like "how many calories do i burn by doing the dishes?" I never see double quotes or +/- signs in the queries.

The engineering used to simply parse the queries is amazing. It's lightyears beyond Google's NLP.

mojuba 17y ago

What exactly did amaze you in this demo?

kyro 17y ago
One thing that amazed me was when he searched for that DNA sequence, and then traversed up and down a chromosome. Mapping out the human genome has been done for some time, but I've never actually seen any sort of interface or app that hooks into this sort of data, and this does. I can't tell you what revolutionary applications or mashups will make use of this data, but I can definitely say I was 'amazed' when he did demo that part of alpha. It's like I'm searching my body!!!
- mojuba 17y ago
  warfangle said "It's lightyears beyond Google's NLP". I'm afraid there's nothing NLP about WA, neither Google. It's just very basic parsing in both cases, if you know what I mean. Not only chromosome traversing, there were a few other impressive things in the demo, but that's some level of structurization and formalization of certain knowledge domains done by respective professionals. Good job. No, very impressive, stunningly scrupulous job. But I see nothing revolutionary (edit:) technology-wise.
  - sundeep 17y ago
    I'm afraid there's nothing NLP about WA, neither Google You might be mistaken there, Google very much uses NLP , though at the backend and not at the user interface. Norvig himself said so ... I cant find to the exact talk where he said this( It was one moderated by Nova Spivak,if I can remember correctly) but here's a link to a TC article that discusses this ..http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/12/18/googles-norvig-is-down-on-natural-language-search/ http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/12/18/googles-norvig-is-down-...
auston 17y ago
every single query.

axod 17y ago

Do people actually use natural language in search queries though? I don't think they do. Technically impressive? yes. Useful for most people? nah.

abossy 17y ago
You may not, since you understand the concept of natural language in the context of search queries and that it's a hard problem. I would wager that a non-trival subset of users in fact do use natural language in searches, especially in the context of the 5 w's; "what is...", "where is...", "when is...", etc. These aren't technically more difficult to understand than your average search query and I would imagine with the volume of google's searches, they do a good job of dealing with these types.
- lena 17y ago
  I have a weight loss website. While most people arrive at my site with queries like "calories in apple pie", a significant number of people use queries like "how many calories do i burn by doing the dishes?" I never see double quotes or +/- signs in the queries.