To turbo-charge child-abuse investigations, LTU Technologies has combined two investigative tools that will provide enhanced resources for victim identification and rescue. In response to a request by the Italian Police, the Child Exploitation Tracking System (CETS) and LTU's Image-Seeker have been linked to expand and accelerate evidence research associated with rescuing child-abuse victims.

The CETS security-enhanced database is designed to work with existing offender-tracking systems in various global jurisdictions, which allows investigators to tap into the data and make connections that would help them to more effectively track, locate, and ultimately arrest offenders. Created in 2003, CETS is the result of a broad collaboration between Microsoft Canada and the Canadian law enforcement including the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Toronto Police Service, Ontario Provincial Police, Sûreté du Québec, and other government agencies.

LTU Technologies provides image search and recognition solutions, in particular for applications within the government sector, including child abuse and stolen art investigations, computer forensics, intelligence, and counter-terrorism. The combined Microsoft-LTU solution is intended to shift the power of internet out of the hands of predators back in the hands of the police. LTU hopes that the successful integration of its Image Seeker with CETS will be one other law enforcement agencies will emulate.

Connecting to the Image-Seeker, which enhances image analysis capability for computer forensics tools, allows agents using CETS to identify related images in the database. The solution will help the Italian police (Polizia delle Comunicazioni) verify if suspected images, from websites or seized from perpetrators, were in previous or ongoing investigations.

"The focus of CETS is to track and exchange information on known offenders, traffickers of abusive images, financial transactions, messaging identities, chatroom discussions—which may be useful in determining the identity of victims and perpetrators," according to Chahab Nastar, CEO of LTU Technologies. "LTU concentrates on the visuals, providing evidence in these high volumes of images."

The combined solution is designed to enable the immediate analysis of images seized from suspects' computers, to help eliminate the long backlogs in computer forensic labs. This ability lets agents share the multimedia information and assemble clues to help identify the sites and identities of victims.

The Italian police department manages the national database of known images, and delivers access to the Image-Seeker database to authorized CETS users. Microsoft assists the agency's technical officers in establishing automatic links between individual case images and the LTU image database system.

The combined approach brings new expertise and contributions in producing a more effective response. "Sharing and exchanging information is one of the most powerful tools law enforcement agencies possess to battle against online child exploitation," says David Hemler, president of Microsoft Canada. "By collaborating with law and government agencies, we can use our combined expertise to better protect our children online."

The companies believe that this collaboration offers great potential for the law enforcement customers around the world to develop technical solutions to address the daily challenges facing forensic examiners and first responders. "The increase in accuracy for search to classify and categorize data is the main goal of LTU," says Smith. "This platform is a step forward for investigating cases and a paradigm shift for CETS," he says.

"Criminals use the internet at an unprecedented rate to exploit the most vulnerable of our society— our children," says the Honorable Anne McLellan, deputy prime minister and minister of public safety and emergency preparedness of Ontario. "I commend the law enforcement and Microsoft for their vision and leadership in creating a tool unlike any other in the world that will help keep our children safe from online predators."

With the combined force of LTU's Image-Seeker and Microsoft's CETS, the Italian Police are better armed to battle internet predators, and to pave the way for a more effective, unified front worldwide.

(www.ltutech.com; www.microsoft.com)

Collective Intellect (CI) has launched a new version of its Media Intelligence service, a media research solution targeted to institutional investors, hedge fund traders and the broader financial community.

Media Intelligence employs a three-phase filtering approach to unstructured data. First, Collective Intellect creates "TopicNets" (a collection of content sources related to a single topic for all content areas of interest to institutional investors). With its TopicNet algorithm, CI can identify and rank the most credible sources of information, which, the company says, differentiates it from other unstructured data filtering tools. Second, CI's technology eliminates irrelevant, duplicate or splog-sourced information. Finally, each individual posting is ranked for relevancy using an adaptive, multi-factor algorithm that incorporates feedback from users through a content voting system. This approach ensures that individual users receive content that is most relevant for their own investment research requirements, says CI.

Major features of Collective Intellect's new solution include:

• real-time feeds of blogs, message boards and other types of unstructured data, combined with traditional news media;
• a simple, easy-to-read user interface that gives traders an immediate view into what's happening now with the stocks, sectors and industries they track;
• minute-by-minute content refreshes content;
• intuitive methods for refining searches about tickers and themes; and
• hosted desktop and email delivery.

NewsGator has released NewsGator Go for BlackBerry and other Java-enabled mobile devices. The company says the new offering gives individual and business users the ability to access news and other time-sensitive content from any RSS-enabled source through virtually any popular mobile device. Key features and benefits of NewsGator Go for BlackBerry and Java include:

Optimal format for mobile devices: Content, including articles and links, is automatically formatted to accommodate limited bandwidth and screen size, and ensure an ideal viewing experience.

Faster access to news and information--Users can more quickly access information that normally would take much longer to view using a standard phone browser, says NewsGator. The reader's single window format allows users to easily access all relevant information, rather than visiting multiple Web sites to access the information they need.

RSS reader synchronization--RSS subscriptions and content are fully synchronized across NewsGator's entire suite of products, including FeedDemon, NetNewsWire, NewsGator Online and NewsGator Inbox. Articles marked as "read" on their mobile device will show up as "read" on their other NewsGator applications.

Synchronization with NewsGator Enterprise On-Demand--NewsGator Go also synchronizes with NewsGator Enterprise On-Demand, an enterprise RSS solution, enabling mobile workers to receive and read relevant news and business content that is synchronized with their enterprise information initiatives.

Clippings synchronization--Clip and save posts for revisiting later with NewsGator Online or any other NewsGator reader.

Mark feeds as read--Mark feeds and articles as read from your mobile device so you can be more efficient when you get back to the office.

Share articles--Users can send interesting articles to friends and co-workers via e-mail on their mobile device.

Ektron has released the latest version of CMS400.NET, which allows organizations to create, deploy and manage interactive Web, intranet and extranet sites using out-of-the-box functionality.

CMS400.NET V7.0 enables highly interactive sites that include features such as advanced navigation and built-in taxonomy to get information into the hands of site visitors as quickly as possible, says Ektron. The new offering is also said to be the first content management system to introduce geo-encoded mapping and wiki collaboration features, including a navigational taxonomy structure to articles and inter-wiki links.

Ektron reports that new features in Version 7.0 include:

• improved forum control;
• enhanced blogging capabilities;
• a new search language API, which enables the generation of dynamic summaries based on content and assets; and
• the ability to tag and classify content.

What is the Enterprise Search Sourcebook?

The 2007 edition of the Enterprise Search Sourcebook is a complete industry resource for executives and technology managers who are implementing enterprise search within their organizations. The 2007 Sourcebook provides in-depth articles on choosing, implementing, and justifying enterprise search solutions. The Sourcebook examines the strategies and skill sets necessary to make an organization's content not only searchable, but "findable". Articles will cover things like the business and technology ROI of internal search, how to make buying decisions, and how to solve the complex problems that challenge search managers.

How Can You Get Your Free Copy?  Just click here. 

If you've already signed up for a copy, it should be arriving in your mailbox shortly.  Keep a look out for the distinctive blue cover with a content cloud map.

The emphasis for this spring's ENTERPRISE SEARCH SUMMIT [May 14-16, 2007, Hilton New York, New York City] is on "extending search," as search becomes not just an application but a major computing platform.

The agenda focuses on how enterprise search software and related applications really work inside organizations and covers the complex issues and problems that challenge experienced search managers.

Expert speakers tackle tough topics such as tuning search to deliver optimum results, making the most of search logs and analytics, applying Web services solutions to metadata challenges, developing topic maps, and much more.

Breakout sessions pack more hours of programming into the concentrated conference schedule and give you the chance to select topics of special interest to customize your conference experience.

Download the advance program.

Register now.

Vamosa, a provider of content processing, analysis, and migration, has announced plans to enter the eDiscovery market with the launch of a new platform called Themis. The platform will leverage Vamosa's rule-based content processing engine and come with several solutions aimed at facilitating and enhancing an organization's eDiscovery practices.

(www.vamosa.com)

Biz Technology Solutions Inc (BTS), a provider of full-service technology solutions for the healthcare industry, and SearchInform Technologies, a developer of corporate search solutions, have announced a non-exclusive partnership agreement to distribute SearchInform solutions. Biz Technology Solutions, Inc develops, delivers, and supports integrated technology solutions for the healthcare community. SearchInform's search capabilities are designed to enable the customer to perform full text phrasal search for documents of similar content and query. This allows for assessment of documents in a multitude of formats.

(www.biztechnologysolutions.com; www.searchinform.com)

CMS Watch, a vendor-neutral analyst firm that evaluates content management, enterprise search, and portal technologies, will release The ECM Suites Report in April 2007. The forthcoming report will sort through the complexities of choosing the right tool for managing documents and records at the enterprise level. The report closely examines 10 major ECM Suite vendors: Alfresco; EMC|Documentum; Hyland; IBM/FileNet; Interwoven; Microsoft; Open Text/Hummingbird; Oracle/Stellent; Vignette; and Xerox. It also includes shorter profiles of 20 other offerings, e.g., CA/MDY, Docubase, NewGen, Nuxeo, Saperion, TOWER, Xythos, and more. The report will be available at the CMS Watch website on April 16th, 2007.

(www.cmswatch.com)

Eurekster, Inc., a provider of social search has secured $5.5 million in a Series B financing. Eurekster's institutional financing was led by Technology Venture Partners (TVP) of Australia and Transcosmos Investments of Japan with the participation of the private investors who provided the company's initial Series A financing. The proceeds will enable Eurekster to accelerate the company's growth and expand the commercial and global scope of its product offering.

(www.eurekster.com; www.transcosmos.com; www.tvp.com.au)

MindTouch has unveiled Wik.is, a community Wiki site that facilitates collaboration and knowledge sharing for friends and family members, businesses, associations, students and educators.

Wik.is launches with 42,000 existing Wikis from users worldwide. Within minutes, MindTouch says, new and current community members can create, edit, share, store and search documents, e-mails, images and files through an intuitive and graphical interface. It functions and looks like a slimmed-down Word processor inside of a Web browser, claims Mindtouch.

There are two levels of the Wik.is service: free and Pro. Users of the free service receive a public Wiki supported by contextual advertisements on its pages and 1 GB of storage.

The Pro package provides Wik.is site owners with a private Wiki that easily integrates with their existing Web site for a unified look and feel and simple navigation across the site. This significantly increases community interactions while making the Wiki a cohesive element of an organization's overall online presentation and mission. The Pro service costs $60 per year. For the first time, individuals or organizations can have a Wiki community as an integral component of their existing Web site.

Additional features of the package include:

• privacy--makes the Wiki accessible only to invited users,
• page permissions--makes pages and sub-pages private or read-only,
• customizable URL: customers can choose a custom domain or sub-domain,
• additional storage--10 times more than the free version, and
• no advertisements.

The Keystone Library Network is implementing a WebFeat Enterprise Edition federated search solution. For 17 participating libraries, including 14 Pennsylvania State System universities, the WebFeat Enterprise Edition solution enables users at each library to simultaneously search a group of shared resources provided by KLN in addition to simultaneously searching the individual library's locally subscribed resources. 10 of the KLN libraries' WebFeat systems will be able to simultaneously search in excess of 100 resources each -either from within the library or remotely. Each participating library will customize and brand their WebFeat interfaces for seamless integration with individual library web pages.

Participating KLN libraries include: Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania; California University of Pennsylvania; Cheyney University of Pennsylvania; Clarion University of Pennsylvania; East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania; Edinboro University of Pennsylvania; Geneva College, Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania; Harrisburg University of Science and Technology; Indiana University of Pennsylvania; Kutztown University of Pennsylvania; Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania; Mansfield University of Pennsylvania; Millersville University of Pennsylvania; Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania; Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania; State Library of Pennsylvania; and West Chester University of Pennsylvania.

Google Inc. has announced separate partnerships with the Rwandan Ministry of Infrastructure and the Kenya Education Network (KENET). As a result, Rwanda's educational institutions and government ministries, and Kenya's universities are starting to use Google Apps--Google's set of hosted and customizable communications services. Students in both African countries as well as Rwandan government officials will have access to free communications tools including email, shared calendars, instant messaging, and word processing under their institutions' domain names.

Three Rwandan universities--the National University of Rwanda, the Kigali Institute for Education, and the Kigali Institute for Science and Technology--will initially have access to Google Apps Education Edition, while the country's government ministries will be using Google Apps Standard Edition. During this first phase, around 20,000 users in Rwanda will have access to these services. A broader countywide rollout will follow shortly afterwards. The University of Nairobi's 50,000 students will be the first to be offered Google Apps for Education in Kenya. These services will then be extended to 150,000 Kenyan students at universities across the country. The rollout will be jointly coordinated by Google and KENET.

(www.google.com)