Researchers feed newspapers to computers

Researchers at Microsoft think computers can do just that. Someday.

Google and Microsoft already offer news aggregation sites that collect all of the day's news stories from throughout the Web. However, MSN Newsbot and Google News present the first part of a story, assuming that is the most important part.

Microsoft research is looking into creating software that can read the whole article -- and dozens of others on the same topic -- and come up with an accurate summary. In theory the research could be extended to even allow the summary to mimic a particular style -- giving, say, a Wall Street Journal-style summary of Jennifer Lopez' wedding to Marc Anthony.

"The research issue is comprehension," said Lucy Vanderwende, who is heading the project. "Can the machine understand?"

If the answer is yes, you can bet the folks at MSN want to know. Indeed, several of the research projects that Microsoft showed off on Wednesday in Silicon Valley are designed to help the company in two of its most critical challenges -- battling security threats and taking on Google in the Web search and information business. The miniature science fair was part of a road show for Microsoft, which held a larger exhibition in March at its main campus in Redmond.

Whether it is summarising news stories or using statistics to find out which Web pages are out there to fool search engines, MSN seems to be the most likely beneficiary of much of the Web-related research efforts.

"Their interest is pretty high," Vanderwende said, although she noted that the need for the document summary technology she is researching extends well beyond news into academics and government as well.

In the area of security, the basic research can't come fast enough, admits Michael Schroeder, the assistant director of Microsoft's Silicon Valley research unit, which is based at Microsoft's campus here.