IBM is working on a semantics-based search engine, FactSpotter, aimed at helping researchers, including lawyers searching through mounds of paper, find what they are looking for faster. What does “semantics-based” mean?

“Many words can be different things at the same time. The context makes the difference,” she said. “The tricky things here are not the words together but how are they linked.”

For example, common searches using keywords “Lincoln” and “vice president” likely won’t reveal President Abraham Lincoln’s first vice president. A semantic search should yield the answer: Hannibal Hamlin.

[via Legal Technology]