Fujitsu Gets Bitten by the Search Bug
June 12, 2009
Juan Carlos Perez’s “Fujitsu Plug In Helps Refine Search Queries” here caught me by surprise. When I think of Japan and search, I think of Just Systems, not Fujitsu. I need to realign my goosely thinking. Mr. Perez wrote:
Fujitsu Laboratories of America has created a browser plug-in that pops-up a cloud of suggested query refinements around search engine boxes. Called Xurch, the tool works with Firefox and Internet Explorer, as well as with several major search engines and some big sites, the company said Thursday [June 11, 2009].
Fujitsu has created a Web site for Xurch here. You can download the free browser plug in here.
The idea is that the tag cloud shows a “cloud” or unordered list of related terms, concepts, and bound phrases appear. Each is a hot link which chops the longer list of results down. You see only those hits that are germane to your information need. To show the cloud, one moves the xurcher (oops, the cursor) into the search box. To make the cloud go away, move the xurcher (ooops, the cursor) out of the search box hot zone.
My hunch is that the Fujitsu Laboraotries of America here have more search goodness in the creative microwaves. NEC Research near the old Bell Labs building in New Jersey did some interesting search related work. Maybe Fujitsu will reignite Japanese-funded rexurch into information retrieval? A search for “information retrieval” on the Fujitsu Labs’s Web site return a link to a tie up with Open Text but not too much other exicting stuff among the four hits.
Stephen Arnold, June 12, 2009
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