Finding new ways to tap into the internet

Research into the best way to mine internet data and find useful information has received substantial State and industry support worth almost €20 million.

This two to three year backing is the second round of finance for the Centre for Global Intelligent Content. The centre is based at Trinity College Dublin but is a collaboration also involving Dublin City University, University College Dublin and University of Limerick.

Science Foundation Ireland is providing €13.5 million while 16 industrial partners are contributing a further €6.3 million, said the centre's director Prof Vincent Wade, who is based in the university's school of computer science.

What the centre does is all about “content” he said yesterday after an industry showcase of innovations from the centre was put on display at Trinity. “The centre is researching how content can more easily be reused, created and transformed,” he said. “Content is text, video, speech, audio, anything in digital format.”

While the large companies financially backing the centre including Microsoft, Symantec, Intel, McAfee, Cisco and others want to be able to produce new products and services, the person in the street also benefits from the centre's work Prof Wade said.

One product from the centre produces powerpoint presentations. The person tells the system what the presentation is about and it then trawls the internet to bring in materials for the presentation, assembling this automatically to deliver a complete package including words, pictures and video.

The centre also helped a company develop an automated translation service based in the cloud.

The centre has about 150 research staff across the four universities, Prof Wade said. It has resulted in seven spinout companies and raised €7million in non-exchequer research funding including 15 EU-funded projects.

The centre offered significant potential for jobs creation, said minister of state John Perry in the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, who attended the event yesterday.

The centre had delivered “tangible economic benefits”, said the Foundation’s director general Prof Mark Ferguson.