The internet and intelligent machines: search engines, agents and robots

The internet plays an important role in a growing number of medical applica tions. Finding relevant information is not always easy as the amount of ava ilable information on the Web is rising quickly. Even the best Search Engin es can only collect links to a fraction of all existing Web pages. In addit ion, many of these indexed documents have been changed or deleted. The vast majority of information on the Web is not searchable with conventional met hods. New search strategies,technologies and standards are combined in inte lligent Search Agents (ISA) and Robots, which can retrieve desired informat ion in a specific approach. Conclusion:The article describes differences between ISAs and conventional Search Engines and how communication between Agents improves their ability to find information. Examples of existing ISAs are given and the possible i nfluences on the current and future work in radiology is discussed.