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Rubber Duck
12th October 2007, 05:59 AM
Orascom Telecom has commercially launched a Arab language mobile internet search engine after a year of running the service as a Beta product. With the growing amount and interest in Arabic content on the Web and the increasing number of users, the new search engine 'Onkosh' was developed to address the needs of the Arab user. In addition, for the first time ever on the Web, users are able to search for Arabic words by typing in English characters, through the patented 'Bel3araby' transliteration feature. This unique feature is a reflection of how Onkosh was developed in line with current Arab Web usage trends.

Onkosh translates as 'unearth' in Arabic.

Khaled Bichara, Orascom Telecom Holding Board Member, said: "This project was one of the most exciting and challenging tasks our team undertook. Engineering a search engine is no easy task in itself, and if we add the fact that Onkosh speaks and understands the complexities of the Arabic language and can transliterate English words into their equivalent Arabic words, it becomes clear why other global and local players have not undertaken this mission yet.

"Onkosh recognizes the intricacies of the Arabic language, and is designed to efficiently crawl and index the Web producing much more satisfactory and relevant Arabic-related search results."

With an index of hundreds of millions of Web pages and Web-accessible documents, Onkosh is able to answer queries in less than a second and can handle thousands of concurrent users. It incorporates search services for the Web, News, Images, Forums, Blogs and Files, as well as offering an Arabic Web directory. It also contains an up-to-the-minute Blog search that covers thousands of Arab related blogs. In addition, it provides a 'File Search' feature which allows users to find files that are linked to forums and music sites - an important feature, considering that an estimated 70% of Arabic Internet usage is focused on forum usage.

http://www.cellular-news.com/story/26637.php

Fka200
12th October 2007, 07:18 AM
Internet via cell phones is expanding in the Middle East. Very nice to hear.

yanni
12th October 2007, 10:32 AM
All we have to wait for now is,

IDN.mobi

..

alexd
12th October 2007, 03:31 PM
From what I remember from the inital .mobi landrush last year, there were plans to introduce IDN.mobi.

I am pretty sure that the mobile internet industry will continue to grow and grow. Whether or not the .mobi tld plays a major role in that remains to be seen.


Alex