Ex-Google Employees Launch Search Rival

Google might want to watch its back—a husband-and-wife team that helped build some of its most important code are getting the search game, the New York Times reports. Anna Patterson and Tom Costello think Cuil—pronounced “cool”—will rival the industry leader. “I think it will be better,” says Costello. “But there is no question that the public has to decide.”

Costello says Cuil’s web-page index is the biggest around, with 120 billion on file. He also says the company’s data mining is more efficient. The engine displays results in a slick grid complete with images. “This is the most promising thing I’ve seen in a while,” said one industry observer. “Whether they are going to threaten Microsoft, much less Google, that’s another story.”