Project Quaero
the Eurocentric Multi-Media Search Engine
In August 2005 French president Jacques Chirac yesterday pledged to help fund a new European internet search engine to rival Google and Yahoo being developed by French group Thomson and Deutsche Telekom.
Known as "Project Quaero", from the Latin word meaning "to seek" the new service will be build on science and technology that is stated to already exist in France and Germany, with much of the content expected to be European.
Project Quaero does not yet have a formal budget but is expected to be financed by the companies involved and by European governments..
It is expected the a presentation of Quaero will be held at the Agance de l’innovation industrielle (AII) in January 2006.
Quaero is not a text-based search engine but is mainly meant for multimedia search, utilising techniques for recognizing, transcribing, indexing, and automatic translation of audiovisual documents with operation in several languages.
It is being suggested that Quaero has more advanced technology in this area than the likes of Yahoo! or Google.
Along with Thompson and Deutsche Telecom, a recent AFP article mentioned the involvement of France Telecom, the search engine Exalead together with some French and German research institutes and content provider.
Present expectations are to see a launch of Quaero in the spring of 2006.