Toyota, Sony, NEC, NTT, and Hitachi – these are the corporations named by Mariko Sanchanta and Richard Waters in an article for the Financial Times.  “The ministry of trade has allocated Y14bn-Y15bn (€89m-€95m) to the project,” the pair also report, which amounts to between $121 million and $129 million.

Of course, that sum might still be insufficient for a direct attack, but the Japanese alliance has something else on its mind.  “Tokyo hopes to use Japan’s strength in developing devices, such as mobile phones and car navigation systems, to create proprietary search and information retrieval functions,” write Sanchanta and Waters.  “For example, the government has matched NTT Data with Toyota InfoTechnology Center and Toyota Mapmaster to create an interactive, personalised car navigation system.”

Many onlookers remain doubtful of the project’s chances; this could be due, in part, to the complete lack of (public) deadlines.  There’s also the silence from Quaero and Theseus, two other national search projects, to consider.

Still, if anybody can beat Google, it might be this Japanese coalition.  For “proof,” read The Onion’s humorous story titled “Earthquake Sets Japan Back to 2147.”

On Search Engine Land, Greg Sterling explains, “In principle, this is comparable to enhanced directory assistance/mobile voice search services being offered in the US by Tellme, 1-800-YellowPages, Jingle Networks and Google (Goog411) but it’s a much broader service.”

Coincidentally, GOOG-411 is getting a share of the spotlight following Click-to-Call’s death.  And Exalead is involved in Quaero, a would-be Google-killer.  Small world, huh?  (Quaero is also associated with Theseus, which has been in the news lately, but this connection is a little more tenuous.)

In any case, “Users in France pay for 118 128 . . . like traditional directory assistance in the US,” according to Sterling.  “By contrast, the services above (Tellme, et al) are all ad-supported – or will be.  In addition to mobile voice search, 118 128 also offers a companion, Internet local search and shopping site.”

On the ExaBlog, there are promises of faster and more accurate search, which should benefit users of 118 218.  And this development should grant Exalead, which is based in France, an even stronger foothold in that country.

For more than year a consortium of European technology companies have been working on the development of Quaero – said to be Europe’s challenge to Google’s dominance. Well, today we learn that Germany has received the blessing of the EU to provide $165 million in funding to Theseus, the German arm of the project.

Initially, the German government would pay several “icebreaker” companies - Siemens AG, SAP AG, Deutsche Thomson oHG and EMPOLIS GmbH, owned by Bertelsmann AG - to kick start research. Later, the German funding would be spread out to small and medium businesses for them to build on the earlier research.

In addition, France is considering pumping another $112 million into the project.

Anyone else see a huge conflict of interest here? It’s highly controversial that European companies are probing Google’s every step, while openly funding a competitor.

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“Initially, the German government would pay several ‘icebreaker’ companies – Siemens AG, SAP AG, Deutsche Thomson oHG and EMPOLIS GmbH, owned by Bertelsmann AG – to kick start research,” reports the Associated Press.  “Later, the German funding would be spread out to small and medium businesses for them to develop the earlier research.”

In the end, the Germans hope to offer unique semantic search abilities, but Theseus is not intended to compete with Google.  (A slight side note: if the name Quaero is familiar to you, know that Theseus won’t directly challenge it, either.)  As for the possibility that Theseus would give those “icebreaker” companies an unfair edge, Neelie Kroes, EU Competition Commissioner, had something to say.

“I am pleased that Germany intends to promote additional research and innovation for the next generation of the Internet and has taken care to do so in a way that will minimize any distortions of competition,” she told Bloomberg’s John Rega.

There’s been no word about when results are expected from Theseus, but the $165 million in funding is supposed to last through 2011.  We’ll have to see if, in that period, the German project can come up with better than following a thread out of a maze.