[LINK] AnswerBus European web query system

[Tom Worthington]

I found that a number of hits to my web site were 
coming from something called "AnswerBus" <http://www.answerbus.com/faq/>:

"AnswerBus is an open-domain question answering 
system (QA) based on intelligent information 
retrieval. It accepts your questions in natural 
languages and extracts answers from the Web. 
Currently, You can use English, German, French, 
Italian, Spanish and Portuguese as your languages."

Most interestingly it seems to be based on European research:

"This site and related researches are supported 
by research grants from the German 
Bundesministerium für Bildung, Wissenschaft, 
Forschung und Technologie (BMBF) (project 
COLLATE, 01 IN A01) since June 2002." <http://collate.dfki.de/index_en.html>.

I asked it "what electric cars are made in australia" and it replied:

---
    1. Many major car manufacturers sell or lease 
electric or hybrid cars in the US, Japan and 
Europe, but no commercially-made vehicles are available in Australia.
    2. It was expected it would ultimately market 
hybrid cars in Australia but no decision had been made as to when.
    3. eBay Australia - electric, electric Radio 
Control, Cars Land Vehicles, Airplanes, Helicopters items at low prices
    4. Here in Norway, there is a demand for 
electric cars, since the government have made incentives for their ownership.
    5. Australia has makers of electric car 
technology and one-off cars, perhaps they can learn from and work with, India.
---

I was most impressed with the last answer, as 
this is from one of my web pages.  ;-)


So then I asked it "who is roger clarke" and it replied:
---
1 openDemocracy Author -Roger Clarke Roger Clarke 
is Principal of Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd, Canberra.
2 Clarke, R. (2001c) 'Roger Clarke's PITs and 
PETs Resources Site' (February/6 April), at 
http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/DV/PITsPETsRes.html
3 Roger Clarke is a Saltaire Tour Guide
4 Roger Clarke is Principal of Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd, Canberra.
5 Roger Clarke is a consultant with expertise in 
strategic and policy aspects of eBusiness, 
information infrastructure, and dataveillance and privacy.
---

But this was not a lot better than Google's answer:

---
Roger Clarke's Home-Page
These community service pages are a joint 
offering of the Australian National University 
(which provides the infrastructure), and Roger Clarke (who provides ...
www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/ - 9k - Cached - Similar pages

     Roger Clarke's Dataveillance and Information Privacy Home-Page
     Created: 15 February 1995 - Last Amended: 1 
October 2004 by Roger Clarke - Site ... This 
document is at www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/DV/index.html ...
     www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/DV/ - 10k - Cached - Similar pages

Xamax Consultancy - Home-Page
It is the corporate vehicle for consultancy by 
Roger Clarke. ... Roger Clarke makes a 
substantial library of publications available, on the following topics ...
www.xamax.com.au/ - 7k - Cached - Similar pages

     Xamax - Consultant Profile
     Send an email to Roger Clarke. Created: 11 
August 1995. Last Amended: 10 December 1998 ... 
Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, 6288 6916 Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au.
     www.xamax.com.au/CV/RCPE.html - 5k - Cached - Similar pages
     [ More results from www.xamax.com.au ]

Cardiff Business School - Economics Section - Roger Clarke
Details the homepage of Professor Roger Clarke of 
the Economics Section at Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, UK.
www.cf.ac.uk/carbs/econ/webbbd/rc.html - 9k - Cached - Similar pages

---



Tom Worthington FACS HLM tom.worthington at tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150
Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd            ABN: 17 088 714 309
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617                http://www.tomw.net.au/
Director, ACS Communications Tech Board   http://www.acs.org.au/ctb/
Visiting Fellow, ANU      Blog: http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/atom.xml