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Start-up launches new technology that seeks to give computers understanding

Written by Ben Fountain

Thursday, 29 November 2007

William Tunstall-Pedoe, founder of True Knowledge Cambridge internet company, True Knowledge is seeking beta testers for a new 'encyclopaedia for computers.' Watch the demo video. True Knowledge has developed an application which represents facts as entities within a broad knowledge-base that computers can understand and process - kind of a Wikipedia for your PC. Its search technology, which has been in development since 1998, can answer questions through a process of deduction, cross-referencing the stored information to produce a reasoned response. View the demo video (article continues below) The result, according to the company, is a system that is capable of learning – applying the information that it has gathered from one source to provide an intelligent response in a new situation. The Cambridge-based company has created a website where people can interact with the knowledge base, ask questions phrased in natural language, and add knowledge to expand the service’s encyclopaedic capabilities. The site is currently in beta testing, and True Knowledge are now inviting beta-testers for their API service which enables external computers to interrogate the knowledge-base to answer specific queries. “There are no clear boundaries in the kinds of questions that can be asked, but we have drawn up a long list of potential API services that we intend to roll out over the coming months,” said William Tunstall-Pedoe, founder of True Knowledge. Over 2.1 million places are registered as entities in True Knowledge’s fact repository, and additional stored knowledge is sufficient to identify the location and time zone of every one of these places. Tunstall-Pedoe believes this marks the beginning of a remarkable resource, which could quickly be put to use, in the first instance, by providers of web- and tele-conferencing services. “Arranging a video or telephone conference with international collaborators is not a trivial problem, as there is no logic to local time changes”, he said. “Having our API integrated into the website of a conference service provider would quickly and easily solve the problem and automatically ensure that your meeting was at a convenient time for everyone. It could also be deployed to automatically email the local time of the meeting to the invitees.” Other applications identified for the API service include geolocation and name-to-gender. Geolocation uses information in the knowledge-base that links IP address to geographical location. This, the company says, would enable websites using the API to estimate a visitor’s geographic location based on the IP address of their computer and tailor the content accordingly. For e-commerce sites, the technology could be used to display appropriate currency pricing, or localised product ranges. Because of the way the knowledge-base is constructed the addition of new facts adds value to the material that it already contains.  “We are inviting suggestions from companies who have specific ideas of areas they would like to explore and test, and look forward to discovering new applications for our API service,” said Tunstall-Pedoe. Anyone interested in finding out more can visit www.trueknowledge.com/api/

 

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