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At a time when Google holds 90% of the search market in Germany and Spain, and almost 75% in Britain and it is generally acknowledged that European companies in spend far less on research than those based in other parts of the world, one of the many fragmented ‘EuroGoogle’ efforts is about to receive state funding.

The European Commission has authorised a grant worth €120 million that will be used to kick-start THESEUS, the German off-shoot research project - after a split with Quaero the French “EuroGoogle” (France is still discussing a similar subsidy plan with the European Commission, aiming to give $112 million to research led by French video-technology company Thomson) - THESEUS is aiming to develop and test new search technologies for the next generation Internet and is hoping to be the world’s most advanced multimedia search engine - but could it really be a Google-Killer?

Research will focus on semantic technologies which try to recognise the meaning of content and place it in its proper context, helping computer programs to understand the context in which data is stored. THESEUS is named after the character in Greek mythology who uses Ariadne’s thread to navigate King Minos’ maze

EU regulators said it could allow Germany to subsidize the Theseus project until 2011 because the government grants were made in a way that would prevent giving any one company an unfair advantage over others.

The grants also are expected to help industry work more closely with scientists, making the research more efficient. Will government subsidies and an army of scientists ever be enough to catch up with Google?
On Thursday, Google posted its second-quarter profits of $925.1 million — a 28 percent jump from the same time last year.
Could they even have Google in their sights before disappearing around the next bend?
It seems hard to imagine - but at least THESEUS will be off the starting-blocks!

via | europa.eu