When we think of searching the web for information, our thoughts (or at least mine) usually turn to Google. However, if you’re looking for numeric data rather than text, a new search engine called “Zanran” might be a better place to start.
Zanran helps you to find ‘semi-structured’ data on the web. This is the numerical data that people have presented as graphs and tables and charts. For example, the data could be a graph in a PDF report, or a table in an Excel spreadsheet, or a barchart shown as an image in an HTML page. This huge amount of information can be difficult to find using conventional search engines, which are focused primarily on finding text rather than graphs, tables and bar charts. [via]
One nice trick: Hover your mouse over the icon on the left-hand side of the search results, and you’ll see a preview image containing your search term.
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BioMed 2.0 