Google serves as the de-facto baseline for current retrieval technology. But research has continued beyond Google, for example in image, video and music retrieval. And there are quite some (smaller) enterprises that make such technology the core of their competitor to Google, often targeting a specific domain. As almost all information is accessible through the Internet, the issue of handling the information overload becomes critical. How can we find the exact information we need, and how can businesses make sure the right customers find them?

Possible subtopics for this seminar include:

• new methods for searching text and multimedia
• cognition and feature modelling
• role of the social web
• assessing quality, effectivity and reliability in retrieval
• search industry: engines, recommendation and business model(s)
• searching using mobile devices