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 A: With over 120 billion indexed web pages, Cuil (pronounced, um, "cool") means "knowledge" in ancient Gaelic Irish.
It is, according to its founders, both the largest and newest search engine on the planet. Google, of course, begs to differ.
After receiving $33 million in venture capital, Tom Costello and Anna Patterson, a former Google employee, have launched Cuil.com and are poised to challenge Google and other search engines by making better use of keyword context and relevance.
According to Costello, "other search engines are unable to keep up" with the growth of the Internet. He believes their top secret search technology will enable Cuil to provide searchers with more insightful results that are strongly based on the content of the page -- not just its popularity.
Interestingly, the new search engine also says it believes in "analyzing the Web rather than" its users, so they don't "collect data about you and your habits".
Competition in any industry is healthy and usually positive, but with Google standing head and shoulders above all other major search engines -- Yahoo, Ask, Microsoft's Live Search -- Cuil is making some extraordinarily bold claims.
The real question may be whether or not any of Cuil's claims will make a bit of difference. Anyone remember Mahalo?
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