Powerset Inc. is taking on Google Inc. with what it calls “natural language” technology where  algorithms are programmed to understand plain-English search requests as opposed to the “keyword” system used by other search engines like Google and Yahoo.

Powerset is a San Francisco company building a transformative consumer search engine. Powerset’s unique innovations in search are rooted in breakthrough technologies that take advantage of the structure and nuances of natural language. Using these advanced techniques, Powerset is building a large-scale search engine that breaks the confines of keyword search, enabling people to express their intent powerfully and naturally in ordinary language.