Edit distance is a measure of similarity of two strings based
onthe minimum number of character insertions, deletions, and
substitutions required to transform one string into the other. The edit
distance can be computed exactly using a dynamic programming algorithm
that runs in quadratic time. Andoni, Krauthgamer and Onak (2010) gave a
nearly linear time algorithm that approximates edit distance within
approximation factor $\text{poly}(\log n)$. In this talk, I will
describe an algorithm with running time $\tildeO(n^{2-2/7})$ that
approximates the edit distance within a constant factor.
This is a joint work with Diptarka Chakraborty, Elazar Goldenberg,
Michal Koucky, Michael Saks