Microsoft to use Cognition’s semantic technologies

Microsoft Corp. has licensed some of Los Angeles-based Cognition Technologies’ proprietary semantic technologies and will be using them to enhance online decision engine Bing and other applications within the company.    Microsoft will incorporate Cognition’s Semantic Map of the English language.    The non-exclusive licensing arrangement enables Microsoft to embed elements of Cognition’s semantic technologies into any Microsoft application which would benefit from an “understanding” of the English language.    Initially, Semantic Map will be used to enhance the user experience in Bing. It will contribute conceptual reasoning and precise question-answering that will mesh with Microsoft’s existing search capabilities.   Cognition’s offering includes more than 10 million semantic connections that consist of semantic contexts, meaning representations, taxonomy and word meaning distinctions. It has developed a semantic natural language processing  technology which adds word and phrase meaning and “understanding” to computer applications, enabling them to be more human-like in their processing of information.   According to the company, the Map encompasses over 540,000 word senses (word and phrase meanings); 75,000 concept classes (or synonym classes of word meanings); 8,000 nodes in the technology’s ontology or classification scheme; and 510,000 word stems (roots of words) for the English language.

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