EVER had trouble hunting down a kernel of information on a massive website, like the ones that belong to banks and governments?

Well, some day soon a virtual helper may appear on the screen and point you in the right direction - without you even having to ask.

The drive to incorporate artificial intelligence like this into websites, among other things, got a major boost from the Government yesterday.

The Media Development Authority announced that 13 projects from local universities will be given a total of $18 million to develop what officials call interactive digital media (IDM).

It marks the second round of grants handed out by a Government-run group created to promote research in IDM. Fourteen projects were selected in the first round last year, and about $22 million was given out.

The money comes from a $500 million kitty the Government has set aside for innovative research into IDM.

This area has been identified as one of the next big money-spinners for Singapore, and the Government is trying to kick-start the growth of the industry.

A panel of international scholars and industry experts picked yesterday's 13 winners out of a field of 85 applicants.

'It was very difficult to reject projects because they were so good,' said one of the panellists, Dr Jose Encarnacao, a computer science expert from Germany.

'We could have easily accepted twice as many,' he said.

The funding, which typically goes towards projects with potential for commercial spin-offs, has been a boon for some local researchers.

Last year, National University of Singapore researcher Chua Tat Seng received funding for a project that aimed to make video and picture searches better.

The technology has since been picked up by Comcast Corporation, the United States' largest cable TV provider and one of its largest Internet providers.