POWERFUL NEW SEARCH TOOL NOW AVAILABLE ON INTERNET

A powerful new software package designed to locate specific information on
the Internet has been placed on the international web of computer networks
by a team of U.S. researchers.

Named Harvest, the software enables users connected to the Internet to
locate and summarize information stored in many different formats on
machines around the world, said Michael Schwartz, a computer science
professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder and team leader for the
project. Users can create new collections of information in the process
and then put them back out on the Internet for other users.

In addition to making information access easier on the Internet, the
Harvest software is designed to ease the strain on servers, or host
computers, as well as overall network traffic, said Schwartz.

"For some people, looking for information on the Internet is like being in
a foreign country where the language and culture are constantly changing,"
he said. "Harvest can help people find the information they need in a
confusing and ever-changing environment."

Harvest, which is being made available on the Internet at no charge, has
been tested at 60 sites around the world for the past four months. Other
team members include the University of Southern California's Peter Danzig,
the University of Arizona's Udi Manber, Mic Bowman from Transarc Corp., a
Pittsburgh software company and CU-Boulder researcher Darren Hardy.

One of the Harvest test projects involved building a server for the AT&T
800 numbers directory, said Schwartz. The information was collected and
organized automatically by Harvest from data posted by AT&T on the
Internet. The researchers added a powerful search tool to the server,
allowing users to find names even if they were misspelled and locate
complete 800 numbers by using only partial numbers as a reference.

Harvest now has the capability, for example, to locate thousands of
technical reports from around the world on a particular topic and then
summarize the contents of each report, he said. Such summaries can be
customized to benefit employees of large corporations and companies
collaborating with each other, for example, by helping users access only
the most pertinent information.

Harvest is the first phase of a $2 million, multi-year project funded by
the Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Air Force Office of Scientific
Research, the National Science Foundation, Hughes Aircraft Co. and Sun
Microsystems of Mountain View, Calif.

Clifford Lynch, director of the University of California Library Automation
Project, called it "one of the most interesting R&D projects" underway
today.

"Up until now, the tools to gather data from the Internet have been very
limited and relatively costly in terms of network resources," he said.
"What Mike and his group have created is a clever and elegant marriage of
research with practical technology important to all of us."

Before Harvest, online Navy users had to go manually to each of the Navy's
20 server sites in order to conduct searches, said Jim Glenn, the U.S.
Navy's Internet manager who tested the software. "Now, we can do it all
with one query from one site. It's one-stop shopping for information."

But Harvest is not a magic bullet, said the University of Arizona's Manber.
"It's impossible to organize all the world's information in one way to fit
everyone's needs," he said. "But it is possible to build collections of
information on specific topics for specific uses and tie them loosely
together so people can search and locate what they want."

Harvest was placed on the Internet in the United States, England, France,
Australia and Japan on Nov 7. It can be accessed on the Internet through
the World Wide Web at http://harvest.cs.colorado.edu.


 ============================================================
 From the 'New Product News' Electronic News Service provided
 via AOL (Keyword = New Products) & Delphi (GO BUSINESS PROD)
 ============================================================
 This information was processed from data provided by the 
 company or author mentioned. For additional details, please 
 contact them directly at the address/phone number indicated.
 OmniPage Pro is now used for converting all printed input! 
 ============================================================
 All submissions for this service should be addressed to:
 BAKER ENTERPRISES,  20 Ferro Dr,  Sewell, NJ  08080  U.S.A.
 Email: RBakerPC (AOL/Delphi), rbakerpc@delphi.com (Internet)
 ============================================================
