SCOTTISH computer experts are helping to develop an internet search engine which will draw its results from sensors located in the physical world.
As the internet continues to expand, public access to net-connected sensors such as cameras and microphone arrays is increasing.
The European-funded project, known as SMART, for 'Search engine for MultimediA Environment geneRated contenT', at Glasgow University aims to develop a system to allow internet users to search and analyse data from these sensors.
By matching search queries with information from sensors and cross-referencing data 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 which my friends have been to recently?'.
Dr Iadh Ounis, of the university's School of Computing Science, said: "The SMART project will be built upon an open-source search engine technology known as Terrier we have been developing at the University since 2004.
"The SMART engine will be able to answer high-level queries by automatically identifying cameras, microphones and other sensors that can contribute to the query, then synthesising results stemming from distributed sources in an intelligent way."
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