Slovenian project gets Google media development funding

The Slovenian companies bid for grants made available by Google in the framework of the Digital News Initiative with an online tool that will allow users to search and analyse the latest news published around the world.

The tool will be developed on the basis of a prototype tool, the Event Registry, which is is already operational and available at http://eventregistry.org/.

In addition to searching for global news it aims to allow users to analyse news by cross-referencing reports about the same event, performing semantic checks and subsequently equipping news with essential meta data, and detecting breaking news quickly.

The tool will also allow for cross-lingual analysis, with which its developers hope to give it global appeal among media professionals.

The project was chosen as part the second round of the Digital News Initiative Innovation Fund, created by Google in cooperation with news publishers in Europe as a means of promoting innovation in journalism.

It is one of 124 projects from 25 countries for which Google and its partners will provide a total of EUR 24.2m as part of the second round of funding, Google said in a statement.

A Slovenian project was also selected in the first round of the scheme, with the Institute Danes je nov dan selected to develop a tool for tracking the work of the National Assembly. The tool is scheduled to launch in December.