I am not referring to a style of dancing. I am talking about a new search engine.

UC Berkeley researchers have created a new style search interface which allows users to easily search through large amounts of information without feeling overwhelmed. You can read about it in an article entitled Flamenco Makes Info Search Easier, published in the Daily Californian.

It is intended to allow the user to browse through results and expand or narrow their search while "maintaining a consistent representation of the collection’s structure."

They used an art history collection to illustrate Flamenco's abilities. As you all know image searching is quite difficult using traditional search engines. Flamenco allowed a user to search for bridges, then group the art into certain centuries or decades. Images then can be narrowed down according to the artist, type of media used and colors that are present. A user can further modify search by adding keywords to the search such as "sunset" to find images containing both bridges and a sunset.

Hmm sounds like a nifty little search interface. They hope to have it available in Dec. of 2004.