Computer scientists at the University of Glasgow are helping to
develop an internet search engine that uses sensors located in
the physical world to provide answers to search queries. By
collating data from sensors such as cameras and microphones, and
cross-referencing it with results from social networks such as
Twitter, users will be able to receive detailed responses to
questions such as 'What part of the city hosts live music events
that my friends have been to recently?' and 'How busy is the
city centre?' The European-funded project, known as SMART
(Search engine for MultimediA Environment geneRated content),
will be built on an open-source search engine technology known
as Terrier that the university has been developing since 2004.
Partners include Atos, Athens Information Technology, IBM's
Haifa Research Lab, Imperial College London, City of Santander,
PRISA Digital, Telesto and Consorzio S3 Log. "SMART builds upon
the existing concept of 'smart cities', physical spaces which
are covered in an array of