Can cuil outdo Google?

Google may be in the dictionary, but Cuil is attempting to take the search giant head on. Cuil("cool") is a new search engine founded by ex-google engineers. They claim that they can index faster and more cheaply than their behemouth older step brother.

The difference? Cuilers claim that rather than searches focused on web links and traffic patterns, Cuil will analyze the context of each page and the concepts behind each user search request.

"Our significant breakthroughs in search technology have enabled us to index much more of the Internet, placing nearly the entire Web at the fingertips of every user," Tom Costello, Cuil co-founder and chief executive, said in a statement.

Cuil was founded by a group of search pioneers, including Costello, who built a prototype of Web Fountain, IBM's Web search analytics tool, and his wife, Anna Patterson, the architect of Google Inc's massive TeraGoogle index of Web pages. Patterson also designed the search system for global corporate document storage company Recall, a unit of Australia's Brambles Ltd.