BEIJING, Sept. 27 (Xinhuanet) -- There's a new kid on the Internet block looking to bring down the "Big Dog" with a new "natural language" search engine built to outsmart Google.

After nearly two years of clandestine development, startup Powerset is finally providing a peek at a technology that is supposed to make it easier to communicate with search engines.

Powerset's algorithms are programmed to understand search requests submitted in plain English, a change from the "keyword" system used by Google Inc., Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp. and the owners of the other leading engines.

The distinction means Web surfers will theoretically be able to get more satisfying results by typing more precise search requests in the form of straightforward questions like "What did Steve Jobs say about Apple?" instead of entering an ungrammatical mishmash like "Apple Steve Jobs said."

Barney Pell, Powerset's co-founder and chief executive, said the hit-and-miss-process of searching with keywords is like talking to a 2-year-old.

"In one sense, you are happy you can talk to it (at) all, but you still really want it to grow up so you can hold a real conversation," he said.

This isn't the first time a search engine has tried to understand simple English, but Powerset has drawn more attention because its natural-language technology is being licensed from the Palo Alto Research Center.

Better known as PARC, the Xerox Corp. subsidiary is renowned for hatching breakthroughs ─ like the computer mouse and the graphical interface for personal computers ─ that were later commercialized by other companies.

(Agencies)