Anna Edwards

A boozy argument with a mate in a pub about the Australian who played James Bond was the inspiration for an SMS-based question answering service that will shed light on your every query.

Called 199QUERY (or 19978379), the service which was started by Sydney-based Australian Royal Navy electronic weapons engineer Sebastien Maslin, 25, uses a computer database and 25 human researchers to get any answer to anyone who texts in Australia or New Zealand for $2.50.

Most answers were back within three minutes, Maslin said.

199QUERY started two years ago after Maslin's debate about the Australian James Bond.

"I thought it was Tim Dalton and the bet had gotten up to $50 but because we were at the pub we had no way of checking so I had to SMS my girlfriend at the time and ask her to Google it," he said.

Maslin lost the bet - the answer was George Lazenby - but it did spark the idea.

The system recognises and pulls out key words to compile an answer which is then sent to the human researcher.

mX tested the service with the question: "Who let the dogs out."

We received the reply: "YOU let the dogs out (woof, woof, woof, woof). YOU let the dogs out (woof, woof, woof, woof). A doggy is nuttin' if it don't have a bone."

Originally printed in mX 14 Feb 2008