About Lexxe
News and Press
Chinese Invents 3rd Generation Search Engine LEXXE
Source: BBC (Chinese), London, UK
Website: http://news8.thdo.bbc.co.uk/chinese/simp/hi/newsid_4360000/newsid_4369700/4369704.stm
Translator: David Yeo
Date: October 23rd, 2005
Hong Liang Qiao, Ph.D. in computational linguistics, invented Lexxe, a 3rd generation search engine with unique "Linguistic Computing" methods.
The advantage of "Linguistic Computing" enables Lexxe to recognize sentence types, carry out syntactic analysis and understand users' intention with artifitial intelligence, which help return accurate and direct answers, for example:
- Who assassinated President Lincoln? [Lexxe Answer:] John Wilkes Booth
- Where were the 2004 Olympic Games held? [Lexxe Answer:] Anthens
- How much is a Sony PSP? [Lexxe Answer:] $99
Encyclopedia
To get direct answers from an Encyclopedia by using a search engine, what makes the difference is the "Linguistic Computing" methods employed by 3rd generation search engine Lexxe vs. the "Symbolic Computing" methods used by 2nd generation search engines headed by Google.
Dr. Qiao explained, Lexxe search engine treated query input as language, instead of symbols. Its direct object for processing is language, not ordinary symbols, because Lexxe has developed language understanding ability.
Upon completing his Master's degree in Linguistics at the University of Leeds in 1988, Dr. Qiao dreamed that computers could be loaded with Encyclopedia, which would eventually allow dialogues on any topics between human and computers equiped with artifitial intelligence. He worked towards this direction after finishing his Ph.D. in computational linguistics at the University of Queensland in 1997.
Dissatisfied with the search engines at that time, Dr. Qiao started his research on search algorithms in 2001 before finally coding them in 2004.
He launched his Lexxe search engine at the website www.lexxe.com.
Developing Lexxe Search for Chinese Language
It is a shame that Lexxe still cannot be used for search in Chinese language. However, Hong Liang Qiao said users can search in Chinese in the future, when some language format recognition is performed on Chinese.
Due to the limitations of language technology, Lexxe is unable to substitute synonyms. Therefore, question answering is still resticted to language statistical methods. To achieve the best search results, one should better ask with 10 words or under.
Hong Liang Qiao pointed out that Natural Language Processing techniques are not mature enough in IT applications and linguists are not playing a significant role in search engine development. This could be a special advantage for a modern language technology-driven search engine like Lexxe.
"In the next 5-10 years time, search engines will not be like Google and Yahoo today. They will just be something like Lexxe, a 3rd generation search eninge, which are more intelligent and good at understanding human language. Search results will be significantly raised, predicted Dr. Qiao.
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