Fer de Lance: intelligence for the free desktop

[Wolfgang Mueller <Wolfgang Mueller cui unige ch>]

Hi,

We are trying to get a project going described at http://www.fer-de-lance.org

The goal of this project is to integrate content-based retrieval services 
into the desktop. Content-based retrieval means: retrieving without relying 
on keywords. See the GNU Image Finding Tool, demonstrated at 

http://viper.unige.ch/demo.php

for an example.

We would like to work on extending the GIFT but also on extending the desktop 
for providing services like a content-sensitive file open dialog (don't show 
me the next directory, instead show me all files similar to this one), or a 
content-sensitive file manager (same functionality in the file manager). We 
want to extend this idea as far as possible, drawing on current research and 
on your desktop expertise. What would be needed would be an API for programs 
that use such services etc.

Getting this to work would be actually quite cool, as this would create the 
largest base of content-based retrieval users so far, being a tool both for 
users and research.

We intend this project to encompass any free desktop you like. It's about 
free vs. non-free, and about writing exciting software. Currently, the only 
one who has contributed desktop code to the project so far is Carsten 
Pfeiffer, who wrote a kioslave to Konqueror, which talks quite successfully 
to the GIFT. See 
http://master.kde.org/~pfeiffer/kmrml/screenshots/

I find this is a really good fist step, and we would like to see things like 
that and more both on GNOME and KDE. It would be really cool to get some 
interoperability here.

Cheers,
Wolfgang

-- 
Wolfgang Müller, 
assistant-doctorant ==  PhD student (2001), teaching assistant
Personal page: http://cui.unige.ch/~vision/members/WolfgangMueller.html 
Maintainer, GNU Image Finding Tool (http://www.gnu.org/software/gift)