'Spending Our Cash Recklessly On A Totally Empty System': 6 years and £8.3m later, there's still no sign BBC's foreign monitoring technology Socrates
Oh look, it's Autonomy...
Oh look, it's Autonomy...
The 370-strong BBC Monitoring division, which analyses and translates into English radio and television bulletins in around 100 foreign languages, is having to monitor the world’s media with what one member of the team described as “antiquated and temperamental equipment that belongs in a museum”.
Socrates was meant to change that. A revolutionary computer system from the Cambridge-company Autonomy, it promised to revitalise the text-based Caversham system with artificial intelligence and the means to translate myriad languages from audio into written English. So sophisticated was this Technology Refresh Project that it was given a lofty acronym based on its anticipated benefits. Specialised, Open source, Collection, Reversioning, Archiving, Tailored, Export, System - Socrates!
It was supposed to be operational in 2009 but, six years after it was commissioned and despite an expenditure of £8,346,847 (a figure released by the BBC in response to a Freedom of Information request), BBC Monitoring is still using its old text system.
Socrates was meant to change that. A revolutionary computer system from the Cambridge-company Autonomy, it promised to revitalise the text-based Caversham system with artificial intelligence and the means to translate myriad languages from audio into written English. So sophisticated was this Technology Refresh Project that it was given a lofty acronym based on its anticipated benefits. Specialised, Open source, Collection, Reversioning, Archiving, Tailored, Export, System - Socrates!
It was supposed to be operational in 2009 but, six years after it was commissioned and despite an expenditure of £8,346,847 (a figure released by the BBC in response to a Freedom of Information request), BBC Monitoring is still using its old text system.
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