The future of search is already here

The Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) in Singapore is organizing the first-of-its kind global competition to foster the development of the world’s next-generation multimedia search technology. This is a great way to kick start and cross pollinate some of the research happening in the world of multimedia searching. But what I found fascinating is what the agency had to say about the future of multimedia search:

Next-generation multimedia search technologies will transform the way users interact with rich-media material, an emerging need with the exponential growth of multimedia content and the proliferation of user-generated platforms like YouTube, Facebook and Flickr. With such technologies, users will no longer need to rely on traditional text-based search engines, which require each multimedia material to be tagged in text – a process that is laborious, expensive and limited by how the creator have chosen to describe the content.

Could not agree more!