Wired has posted about a new search engine, Pluggd, which is currently in beta testing and available as a demo to test out.

The basic principle behind the new site engine is explained by Wired’s Eliot Van Buskirk:

“First, the company uses parallel servers to churn through audio, performing a speech-to-text analysis of each file at faster-than-real-time speeds. The company also maintains what it calls a “concept map,” a database that tracks associations between words by analyzing Pluggd’s speech-to-text transcripts and looking for words that often show up in the same contexts. This tool also studies text web pages, so the concept map learns to associate words faster than Pluggd can analyze audio files.”

As podcasts, digital radio broadcasts, and audio in general exponentially grow across the web, a search engine like this will become vitally important in finding recorded information. Programs that can analyze audio have been around for a while, but if Pluggd succeeds in its mission, it will be like nothing else available on the web (until someone else builds a mirror of it).

If you ever find yourself in need of non-restrictive sounds for a multimedia project or a similar endeavor, The Freesound Project might be what you need. They offer a user-contributed database of Creative Commons-licensed sound files.

As with all Creative Commons materials, I would suggest you go over the licensing rules and understand when and where you can use the sounds. The Freesounds Project uses the Sampling Plus 1.0 which specifically restricts usage in advertising. It’s really not all that complicated, but proper attribution is what makes these licensing schemes work and attracts creators. Just take a quick look at their Rules and Legal pages and you’re good.

I searched for all sorts of random things and came up with really nice results. The files are of good quality and not noisy and scratchy like you’d expect from some random Joe with a crappy Walmart mic.

And just in time for Halloween, there’s a wide assortment of screams and other scary sounds.