Back Unplugged!
Vipin VNair
| A start-up founded by an Indian seeks to make Internet search possible without a Net connection. |
At a time when Internet search is the hottest topic on the Net, a start-up company founded by an Indian is going one step ahead; it is trying to make Internet search possible without a Net connection.
The company that has already made ripples in the global media with its innovative Web search is Webaroo. Founded in 2004 by Bombay IIT alumnus Rakesh Mathur along with others, Webaroo is headquartered in Washington and has offices in Santa Clara, Mumbai and New Delhi.
What Webaroo seeks out to do is trying to shrink the World Wide Web into your computer's hard drive. Well, almost. This is how Webaroo works: Webaroo servers would search the Internet, analyse Web pages and then select appropriate content to store in the least possible storage space.
These pages, catagorised as `web packs', can be downloaded into your laptop, PDA (personal digital assistant) or even a smart phone. In addition to this, you may also download Web pages of your choice. And you can search these pages even when you go offline, and once you are back with the Net connection, Webaroo will automatically update the content.
So essentially you are carrying a slice of the Internet with you on your mobile device and you can search it whenever you want to.
The premise with which Webaroo is going about its search technique is that most people, while doing a search, would not go beyond the first few pages that a search engine comes up with. Also, in spite of wireless Internet taking off, its reach still very limited.
Webaroo claims that it determines the content value of a Web page based on the `diversity and quality of the pages.' It calls this ability `Content Density.' And when the device is connected to the Net, Webaroo would update different topics at different frequencies. For instance, news will be updated faster compared with other subjects.
You can download Webaroo on to your device from www.webaroo.com. Computer maker Acer has already struck a deal with Webaroo to include the software in its new laptops.
The Team
Rakesh Mathur is not exactly new to creating Internet start-ups. Earlier, he had founded Junglee, which was subsequently sold to Amazon.com. His other ventures were Armedia and PurpleYogi. The co-founder of Webaroo is Bradley Husick, who functions as the company's President. Another IIT Bombay product, Beerud Sheth is the Chief Technology Officer of Webaroo. To his credit, Beerud had founded Elance, the world's largest online service marketplace.
System Requirement
You need Windows XP SP1/SP2 or Windows 2000 SP4. The browser should be Internet Explorer 6.0+ or Mozilla Firefox 1.5+ and at least one GB disk space to download the selected content from Webaroo. For a mobile device, you need a Windows Pocket PC 2003 2nd Edition and at least 512 MB external storage.
© Copyright 2000 - 2009 The Hindu Business Line