When Gary W. Flake searches for a certain computer scientist on the World Wide Web, he gets deluged with unwanted information about someone else. The scientist’s name? Michael Jordan.
A new algorithm developed by Flake of the NEC Research Institute in Princeton, N.J., and his colleagues could lead to more precise Web-searching engines, Flake says. Such an engine could, for instance, zero in on University of California, Berkeley Professor Jordan despite all those Web references to the basketball superstar.
Log in
Subscribers, enter your e-mail address for full access to the Science News archives and digital editions.