Towards next-generation search engines and browsers - Search beyond media types and places

Abstract

In this keynote talk, the author will describe concepts and technologies for next-generation search engines and browsers for searching and browsing contents beyond media types and places. Currently, digital content are represented by different media such as text, images, video etc. Also, digital content are created, stored and used on a variety of places (devices) such as independent digital archives, World Wide Web, TV HDD/DVD recorders, personal PCs, digital appliances and mobile devices. The viewing styles of these content are different. That is, WWW pages are accessed and viewed in an active manner such as a conventional Web browser (reading, scrolling and clicking interface). On the other hand, TV content are accessed and viewed in a passive manner. As for searching these "ambient multimedia contents", currently, many commercial search engines cover only WWW content and personal PC contents, called "desktop search". First, the author describes research issues necessary for searching "ambient multimedia contents". The main research issues are (1) cross-media search, (2) ranking methods for contents without hyperlinks, and (3) integration of search results. As for cross-media search, the author describes query-free search, complementary-information retrieval, and cross-media meta-search. Second, the author describes ways of browsing "ambient multimedia content". The main topics of the second part are new browsers by media conversion of digital content, concurrent and comparative browsers for multiple contents. For example, the proposed browsers have an ability to automatically convert Web content into TV content, and vice versa. The last part of the talk is concerned with mining metadata owned by search engines and its usage for computing the "trustness" of the searched results.