This easy to implement natural-language search engine
converts many natural types of questions and searches into
a sequence of web searches collating and filtering the
results. No real AI here, but rather a "simple suggestion
machine" by keywords and a few rules. The user interface
should be
iterative, with some questions to the user: Did
you mean... with checkbox next to desired search, and
links for a drilldown.
Here's the reasoning: People like to search with question
marks, quotes and most importantly using the negative -
in order to remove fields of semantic meaning.
For example you would write: Is thisFreeProgram a hoax?
Most of the first results are useless, because if it is,
usually the term has been covered with web garbage.
If your a google geek you know how to truly and finally get
the desired result, although it could take an hour or two.
The program will show you several keywords around hoax
such as Spyware, fraud etc. At the same time it will have
an "Exclude" box of types of results that you DONT want.
(thisFreeProgram download sites etc).
It would then search each one of the search strings it came
up with, and present them collated and filtered.