A group of German-led companies aims to create a multimedia search engine that tops Google.
Did Galileo, the European competitor to the America GPS satellite system, succeed? No, and Theseus will fail, too. You can tell by looking at the specs:
- EU approved.
- Subsidized by the German government.
- 22 partner organizations, companies, and universities, including SA and Siemens.
- Budget of nearly $300 million, of which more than half is government subsidy.
- Born out of the failed Quaero project, the search engine described by the then-president of France as "the answer to the global competitors of Google and Yahoo."
This project is not designed to replace Google. This is designed to hoodwink government into subsidizing jobs at profitable corporations. No wonder taxes keep going up in European nations.
Great new ideas are not generated when millions of Euros swirl about. (Think Microsoft.) Money suffocates the urgency that otherwise comes from the no-idea, no-food-on-the-table alternative.
There is no need to replace Google, other than as a salve for the wounded pride of some in the world's largest economic block. (Think Airbus A380.)
The name chosen for the project speaks its own prophecy: the mythological Theseus avoids getting lost in King Minos' maze by navigating through it with a thread. Today's Theseus is no one-man project bent on solving a problem out of desperation; no, today's Theseus is a committee designed to solve mythological problems by following the trail of Euros in the EU maze. And getting lost.
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