|
BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - The European Union on Thursday authorized Germany to give $165 million for research on Internet search-engine technologies that could someday challenge U.S. search giant Google Inc.
The Theseus research project — the German arm of what the French call Quaero — is aiming to develop the world's most advanced multimedia search engine for the next-generation Internet. It would translate, identify and index images, audio and text.
Initially, the German government would pay several "icebreaker" companies — Siemens AG, SAP AG, Deutsche Thomson oHG and EMPOLIS GmbH, owned by Bertelsmann AG — to kick start research. Later, the German funding would be spread out to small and medium businesses for them to build on the earlier research.
|