Wikipedia Plus
This is kind of cool, it’s a site called Powerset.com that provides an alternative interface for Wikipedia. It uses natural language processing to dynamically provide custom views, summaries, and links to related topics. It’s a little hit and miss in some spots but still impressive. Here’s their demo video.
The technology behind it, recently acquired by Microsoft, isn’t restricted to Wikipedia so maybe we’ll see expanded applications soon. They already use it to beef up Live Search.
It also shows what an indispensable resource Wikipedia has become (despite its shortcomings and petty infighting) when another useful tool such as this can be built solely around slicing and dicing Wikipedia’s content.
In a weird coincidence—well, a coincidence only to me—the video demo of their iPhone app navigates through the entry for Achewood, a webcomic which I happen to be somewhat obsessed with.
October 10th, 2008 at 1:35 am
Well, most of us on the Powerset product team are obsessed with Achewood too, which is why it usually makes it into any demo we do
Glad you’re diggin our stuff! We have a lot more cool things we’re cooking up.
October 10th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
thanks, I hope I didn’t mangle the description of your product too much.