Except for Google, I can’t think of a monopolistic business that is so dutiful in updating its products and rolling out new features ever so often. They might have the nasty habit of snooping our browsing habits and history, but Google does a bang up job in identifying the domains in search that needs improvement.
Last week, Google unveiled three brilliant new additions to Google Search at Inside Search, an event dedicated to making online search better. Now, in addition to searching with text, we can search using voice and images. And then there is Instant Pages that decreases page load times. To know more about how these features work, follow me after the fold.
Desktop Voice Search
Voice commands aren’t a new feature in the era of smartphones. However, it still remains an under-used feature on desktops. Google Voice Search might come in handy when you can’t use your fingers to type.
To test how precise are the searches by voice, ensure that your microphone is turned on and head over to Google.com. Currently this feature seems to be working only at Google.com and not at country specific domains. Like most other Google features, this too works out of the box without the need for any configuration or plugin installation.
When you are ready to execute the search, find the microphone icon to the extreme right inside the search box and click on it. In about three or four seconds, the system will be ready to take your command and you will be shown a Speak Now prompt. Currently only US English is supported, so be sure that you roll your R’s!
I tried searching for iPhone using voice command and to my surprise, the results showed up in a few seconds despite my flat accent. I would like to know if search results are a bit faster for native English speakers.
The only downside is that the voice search feature works only on Google Chrome browsers. And I also found it a tad funny to talk to an electronic device. So, if you aren’t embarrassed by the strange looks of people around you, try this cool new feature and get a glimpse at what the future of search might look like.
Instant Pages
Often, I search for a particular product in mind just because I don’t remember their official domain name. Nine times out of ten, the very first result would be the one I am looking for. This is true in the case of most of our search results. So, to speed up the loading times of the most suitable search result, Google has introduced the Instant Pages feature.
The new feature will help users get to their desired search results even faster–in some cases even instantly! The Instant Pages feature is enabled by prerendering technology that is being built into Chrome.
So the next time you search for, say Firefox, you will see the same search results as usual. But, Google’s algorithm will intelligently trigger the prerendering process of Mozilla’s homepage because it is the most likely destination. As soon as you hit that link, the page will be displayed instantly and you don’t have to wait.
This prerendering technology is currently available in the beta version of Google Chrome and should see the light of the day soon. While this sounds like an awesome feature, it’s disheartening to see that it is Chrome only.
Image Search
Finally! After the advent of digital cameras and mobile phone cameras, the amount of images available online is on an exponential rise. Even with proper tagging, it’s tedious and cumbersome to search and get the right image we are looking for. Usually, I will go to TinEye to upload an image to find similar ones. It’s a well built app and works fine most of the time. But the number images in their index when compared to Google Images is tiny.
Now, you can upload an image and search for a better one with a higher resolution or find similar ones. That’s not all, you can search using images in three more ways. First, there is the option to drag and drop images directly at images.google.com.
Alternatively, if you find an image you are curious about in a web page, you don’t have to go through the hassle of downloading and uploading it. Just copy the image URL (right click on it to find the option) and paste it at images.google.com by clicking on the camera icon.
Still feel that its too much work to execute an image search? Just install a Firefox or Google Chrome extension and start searching for images by right clicking on it. I dragged and dropped an image and the results displayed were very comprehensive. TinEye does a great job, but with the mammoth index Google has built, the results are impeccable.
The results weren’t limited to images. Relevant Wikipedia entries explaining what the image is about, links to articles that carry that image were displayed. On top of these, a bunch of similar and related images are shown as well. I loved the best guess feature, where Google displays what the image could be about. This option should be of real help if you are really interested in knowing the name of a bird, animal, cuisine, person etc.
The advanced image search features work universally across all modern browsers. If you are concerned about privacy when searching for images of real people, Google does not use facial recognition to identify them.
Share Your Thoughts!
Isn’t Google the coolest online company or what? Will you be using voice search when you are around people, say in a coffee shop? Or will you be uploading your picture to see what celebrity you look like?
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