Briefs

October 1, 2003. Google on Tuesday announced it acquired Kaltix, a three-month old search technology startup at work on improving search results relevance through personalization.

Financial details of the deal were not disclosed. A Google representative said the Mountain View, Calif., company gains three engineers and all technologies Kaltix developed.

Google said Kaltix's focus is on personalizing search and making it context sensitive. Search engines dream of tailoring the search experience for users. With personalization, a search engine can more intelligently figure out what a user is searching for, based on previous searches. A much-used example is the ability, when the user inputs the word "jaguar," to distinguish whether the user is searching for information about the car, the Apple operating system, or the cat.