DARPA trying to re-invent Internet search

Imagine an Internet that enabled its users to slice and dice content into subsets of content relevant to their interests and needs, rather than top-down keyword searches that commercial search engines like Google and Bing offer.

Well that’s just what information technology experts at the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) are trying to do. In fact, DARPA is trying to re-invent the Internet in a fundamental way with the Memex program, which was launched earlier this month.

It’s interesting — and fitting — that DARPA should re-invent the Internet, since the agency’s precursor, the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) invented the original Internet back in 1969 with the first packet-switched network based on TCP/IP protocols called ARPANET. ARPA was created in 1958, and was renamed DARPA in 1972.

Imagine an Internet that enabled its users to slice and dice content into subsets of content relevant to their interests and needs, rather than top-down keyword searches that commercial search engines like Google and Bing offer.

Well that’s just what information technology experts at the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) are trying to do. In fact, DARPA is trying to re-invent the Internet in a fundamental way with the Memexprogram, which was launched earlier this month.

It’s interesting — and fitting — that DARPA should re-invent the Internet, since the agency’s precursor, the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) invented the original Internet back in 1969 with the first packet-switched network based on TCP/IP protocols called ARPANET. ARPA was created in 1958, and was renamed DARPA in 1972.

That would be a far cry from what’s available today with commercial search engines, which rely on the user to craft the most efficient keyword search words and phrases. As most of us know, it can be a frustrating hit-or-miss process.

If the Memex program yields promising technology, it could lead to a fundamental change in how we search the Web and find information, and could redefine what we know as search engine optimization, which relies heavily on keywords and phrases, and black-magic algorithms proprietary to the search engine providers that are closely held secrets and changed regularly.

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