Vai
Inside Search
The official Google Search blog
Find music on Google and start playing it directly in your favorite app
June 19, 2014
When you look up musicians and bands on Google, you often want to play their songs right away. Say you’re curious about your favorite pop artist’s latest hits, or you’re with friends chatting about the newest indie rock group and want to play some of their music. Starting today, when you ask Google about a musician, you can simply tap a link to play their music right in one of your installed apps.
This feature is available for Android devices in the U.S. and will work with the following:
We’re working to expand this feature to users worldwide, with their local services like Deezer. We hope all this makes finding and exploring artists and music on Google more fun now that you can listen to the music right away.
Posted by Jason Douglas, Group Product Manager, Google Search
Billions of times a day in the blink of an eye
March 1, 2013
Ask a question, get an answer. But what happens in between? Last year we released an
animated site
that illustrates an email's journey to friends and family around the world. Today we're releasing a similar website called
How Search Works
.
Here you can follow the entire life of a search query, from the web, to crawling and indexing, to algorithmic ranking and serving, to fighting webspam. The site complements existing resources, including this blog,
the help center
,
user forums
,
Webmaster Tools
, and in-depth
research papers
.
A few things you'll find:
An interactive, graphical explanation of Google Search
A view into major search algorithms and features
A 43-page document explaining how we evaluate our results
A live slideshow of spam as we remove it
Graphs illustrating the spam problem and how we fight it
A list of policies that explain when we'll remove content
We hope the
site
helps to illuminate the split-second journey from algorithms to answers. The animated site is available today in English and there's also a text-only version in 43 languages.
Posted by
Jake Hubert
, Product Manager
Plan your Valentine’s date night -- even if you’re a bit late to the game
February 12, 2013
You’ve got less than two days before Valentine’s Day -- are your plans in place? If you’re swamped at work and scrambling to find a last minute dinner reservation, flower shop, chocolates, and a romantic spot for that special someone, Google can help you look like a smooth operator, even if you’re just starting to plan now.
Looking for flowers and chocolate?
Simply tap the microphone icon on your
Google Search App on iOS or your Android device
and ask “Where’s the nearest flower shop?” to see where you can pick up roses for that special someone. Hoping to find a delectable box of chocolates nearby? Ask, “Where can I buy chocolate in San Francisco?” In seconds you can swipe through the options, tap to call the shop, and get voice-guided navigation there by car or by public transit.
Find the perfect date spot.
If you’re looking for a new restaurant or hidden romantic spot in your city, Google can help you find the perfect fit. Are you hoping to make dinner anything but ordinary? Ask Google for “restaurants with live music in San Francisco,” and swipe through local options that fit your taste and budget. Looking for a perfect romantic spot or attraction? Say, “Show me pictures of romantic spots in San Francisco,” and swipe through a collection of photos to pick the perfect place.
Whether you’re looking for a little novelty with your significant other or just recently mustered up the courage to ask out a new crush, we hope this makes it a little easier to plan a special outing. Good luck!
Roya Soleimani
, Search Communications Team
Get ready for Game Day with Google
February 1, 2013
As all of you football fans prepare for the San Francisco - Baltimore game this Sunday, we thought we’d pull together some ways to make the most of the Big Game with a little help from Google. From hosting the perfect party to learning more about your favorite players, check out some tips on ways Google can help.
Planning a party for the big game? Ask Google for some help
Whether your party food is wings, dip, chili or nachos, we can all agree on one thing: the messier, the better. You can get your party prep and cooking done without getting your phone too messy, using
Google Voice Search
, hands-free on your tablet or smartphone. With a quick tap of the microphone icon, you can literally ask Google for help:
-Need to buy drinks? Simply ask “what is the closest grocery store?” and we’ll show you the nearest ones to scroll through. With a quick tap, you’ll be there with the help of turn-by-turn navigation.
-Maybe you want to make that cocktail that’s like a Bloody Mary but not quite... ask “what’s a michelada?” -- and you’ll both hear and see the ingredients.
-Once you’re ready to cook, ask “best chili recipes” and see a range of options, or ask “how do I make guacamole?” and find your way to the best sites to answer your question.
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Get the stats on your favorite players
Whether you want to impress fellow fans with your sports trivia, or if you are curious about the guy who scored the last touchdown, Google Search can get instant and more complete answers. Ask about your favorite players, teams, and explore a world of related and connected topics as well.
Indoor stadium and airport views on Google Maps
If you’re one of the lucky fans who gets to see the game in person, you can use
indoor Google Maps
to quickly find your gate, your seat, or some game time snacks at the Superdome.
To access the indoor map, just search for “Superdome” in Google Maps on your Android phone and zoom in to see the stadium floor plan. Search the map to find section numbers, bathrooms and points of interest, and use the numbered floor picker (on the right-hand side) to see maps for each floor.
Make sure you’ve downloaded the
latest version of Google Maps for Android
to access indoor maps.
Watch your favorite ads with Ad Blitz on YouTube
To make it easier to catch up on all the commercials, the
YouTube Ad Blitz channel
in partnership with ADWEEK will let you watch your favorite ads soon as they air live on TV. You can vote for your favorite ad at the end of the game. To learn more about all the new social, gaming, and mobile features in this year’s gallery, visit our
YouTube blog
.
Google Images: faster, more reliable and lets the images do the talking
January 24, 2013
When you’re looking for images, chances are you want to check out more than just one. So we’ve redesigned
Google Images
to make it easier to move through a series of images -- it’s now faster, more reliable and lets the images do the talking.
Instead of sending you over to a whole new page to preview an image, you’ll see a preview of the image in your search results. Once you click on an image, you can quickly flip through the whole set of image previews using your keyboard. Your search results stay in the panel so you don’t lose track of what you were doing; if you want to go back to looking at other search results, you can just scroll down and pick up right where you left off. If you want to check out the website where the image is hosted, you can click on the photo or use the tools available.
The new design is rolling out worldwide over the next few days. Google Images has always been about providing you visual answers. We hope this update makes it easier and even a bit more fun to find the images you’re looking for.
Posted by
Hongyi Li
, Associate Product Manager
Google Handwrite gets easier and faster
January 18, 2013
Since we
launched Google Handwrite last summer
for smartphones and tablets, we’ve been improving recognition quality and also working on a number of features to make it easier and faster to handwrite your searches on Google. You can now distinguish between ambiguous characters, overlap your characters, and write multiple characters at a time in Chinese.
Is it an L, a 1 or an I?
If you’ve tried Handwrite before, you may have had some trouble entering a lowercase “L”, the number “1”, or a capital “I”. Now, we provide alternate interpretations of your characters that you can select above the space bar. Similarly, in Japanese the characters “イ” and “ィ” look nearly identical but are different characters and produce different search results. If Google interprets your handwriting one way and you meant the other, you can now more easily make a correction.
Some overlapping is OK
Compared with tablets, mobile phone screens are smaller and are a little more difficult to write on. Now, instead of squeezing in your letters across the width of the small screen or writing one letter at a time, you can write letters on top of one another. Say you’re in the grocery store and you want to look up a recipe for quiche on your phone. When you write the letters “q”, “u”, “i”, “c”, “h”, and “e”, it’s okay if they overlap and are garbled a bit.
Multiple characters at a time in Chinese
When we first launched last summer, you could only write one Chinese character at a time. Now, you can write more than one character at a time on a line, which makes it much faster and easier to enter your search.
To enable Google Handwrite, go to Google.com on your smartphone or tablet, go to settings, select “Enable” Handwrite, and save the settings. For more tips and tricks, view our
Help Center
page.
Posted by
Lawrence Chang
, Product Manager
Advanced Power Searching with Google -- Registration Opens Today
January 8, 2013
What historic cafe inspired a poem by a Nobel Laureate? In the last three barista world championships, which winners did not use beans from their home country? If you were preparing a blog post on “Curious Trivia of Coffee Culture,” how would you find the answers to these questions? What else would you discover? Now you can sign up for our
Advanced Power Searching with Google
online course and find out.
Building on
Power Searching with Google
, Advanced Power Searching with Google helps you gain a deeper understanding of how to become a better researcher. You will solve complex search challenges similar to those I posed in my
blog
, or
a Google a Day
, and explore Google’s advanced search tools not covered in the first class.
Oftentimes the most intriguing questions invite you to explore beyond the initial answer, and there’s no single correct path to get there. When looking for questions that can’t be solved with a single query, “search” can quickly turn into “research.” Google Search offers a palette of tools to help you dive deeper into the web of knowledge.
Visit
www.powersearchingwithgoogle.com
to learn more about our online search courses, and review our search tips on the
Power Searching with Google Quick Reference Guide
. Advanced Power Searching begins on January 23 and ends on February 8th.
Posted by
Dan Russell
, Über Tech Lead for Search Quality and User Happiness
A better, faster travel planning experience: 2012 updates
December 19, 2012
(Cross-posted on the
ITA Software By Google
blog)
Google aims to help people turn their intents into actions, lightning fast. For travelers, this means we’re helping to take the complexity out of planning a trip by making it fast and easy for users to find the information they need to plan their next journey. Whether you’re looking for information about flights, hotels, activities or destinations, we have tools to help you -- and they are easily accessible for people on the go. Some of our favorite new functionality is outlined below.
More information, better presentation
This year, we’ve made some changes to the user interface of Flight Search, and added features that offer more information about amenities and fees; we did this to help users feel well-informed, and to help them quickly choose the best itinerary.
For instance, you can now quickly compare multiple destinations and multiple days simultaneously, using live prices, with our recently introduced experimental feature called Flight Explorer. Try it at
www.google.com/flights/explorer
.
Flight Explorer experiment search results page
You can also use a number of new features to tailor your flight shopping:
More easily calculate the total cost of your trip by taking a look at the baggage fees displayed next to each flight option
Choose a flight offering in-air connectivity by viewing a new indicator noting flights that offer Wi-Fi
Consider a little more luxury in the sky by comparing the cost of flying business or first class instead of coach
Easily plan complex itineraries -- such as those including multiple stops, or trips that involve a flight into one city and a return trip from another -- without confusion, using our new, user-friendly interface
Multi-city trip, Wi-Fi availability indicator, upgrade cost and checked baggage fees
Going global
In March,
we made it possible
for users to find flights to more than 500 destinations outside the US. Soon after, we enabled this capability for
any
international destination airport, for flights originating from the US or Canada. Globetrotters can try these features at
www.google.com/flights
, or just type your departure city and destination in the search box.
Results for international destination flight
And late this year, we rolled out localized versions of Hotel Finder in France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Austria, Portugal, UK and Ireland. Now, people in those areas can search for and view hotel options in their own language and currency.
Helping people make informed hotel choices
In 2012, we made it even easier to find and book the right hotel for you using Hotel Finder. We also added more content including Zagat reviews and amenities. Hotel Finder now shows the price and availability for a choice of room types.
Pricing information, reviews, hotel details on Hotel Finder
Varying room types on Hotel Finder
You can try these features, and others, at
www.google.com/hotels
.
Empowering road warriors, delivering better destination data
In September, we made it easier for you to find the information needed to plan a trip, whether you’re searching via desktop,
smartphone
or
tablet
.
Soon after, updates to
Google Now
offered a number of ways for you to stay informed while on the go:
Automatic flight status notifications
Updates on weather at your destination
Showcase of events happening nearby
Website suggestions to help you explore as you research things to do
Electronic boarding pass cards for ease of travel
Google now travel cards
Finally, you can
easily
tap into the collective intelligence of the web to uncover a list of information relevant to your destination, using the
Knowledge Graph carousel
-- and hopefully, find inspiration.
Knowledge Graph carousel list of activities in Rome
Stay tuned for more. We think you’ll love what we have coming your way in 2013.
Posted by Jeremy Wertheimer, Vice President, Travel
Quick answers to resolve holiday travel stress
December 5, 2012
It’s easy to have a love-hate relationship with the holidays. On the one hand, it’s a joyous time of the year full of festivities and delicious baked goods. On the other hand, it’s stressful. For something like traveling which is already stressful on its own, traveling during the holidays can feel like twice the trouble.
One way to cut down on some of the stress before you head to the airport is to plan ahead. Let’s say this year you’re traveling to France for the holidays. Here are some quick answers that can make your planning faster and easier -- we
recently redesigned these features to be richer and more interactive
on mobile and tablet, and now you’ll see them on desktop as well, so you can plan ahead whether you’re at home or on the go:
Figure out your budget.
Since luggage space is limited and you don’t want to pay an overage fee, you may want to buy your gifts when you land in France. Find the currency exchange rate ahead of time so you can figure out how much that $15 (USD) fruitcake actually costs in euros by searching [
15 usd in euro
] or [
french currency
].
Learn about French traditions.
Friends who live in Paris have invited you to their reveillon dinner. Trouble is, you don’t know what that means. You can quickly find the answer by typing [
define reveillon
] in Google.
Plan your holiday Hangouts.
Even though you’ll be oceans apart, you can still wish your family a happy holidays in person. Schedule a date for a Google+ Hangout, but don’t forget to factor in the time difference, which you can figure out by searching [
time in france
].
Track your flight before you leave the house.
To avoid arriving at the airport only to find out your flight’s been delayed for hours, you can quickly check the flight status by typing the flight number like [
united airlines 942
] or [
UA942
], into the search box.
Other quick answers we’re updating on desktop over the next few weeks are
finance
,
unit conversion
,
holiday
and
sunrise times
, and
weather
. And, of course, you can also make your holidays easier to manage using things like our
Flight Search
feature to book your trip,
Google+
to share your photos with family and friends,
Google Docs
to track your holiday spending, and more.
Happy holidays!
Posted by Robert Stacey, Software Engineer
Travelers can now access Flight Search from their tablets
September 28, 2012
(Cross-posted on the
ITA Software by Google
blog)
More and more travelers are using tablets to search for and book travel. In fact,
46% of all US tablet owners
who search for travel, actually purchase via their tablet. We also know that people use their tablets differently than they use their desktop. That’s why we’ve optimized our
Flight Search
experience for those who prefer to search with a tablet, such as a Nexus 7 or an iPad.
Starting today, travelers can search for and book flights on any tablet device by going to
http://www.google.com/flights/
. With the touch of your finger, you can easily explore places to visit on the map and see prices updated in real-time for each destination.
If you’re flexible with your dates you can also use our lowest fares tool and scroll across days, weeks and months to find the cheapest dates to take your trip. Your results will be updated super-fast, even when you switch dates or destinations.
We hope this makes planning your next trip easier and more enjoyable -- whether you’re using your desktop, laptop,
mobile device
or tablet. We look forward to your continued feedback on
Flight Search
.
Posted by Rani Manoharan, User Interface Designer, Travel
Oktoberfest anyone?
September 21, 2012
(Cross-posted on the
ITA Software by Google
blog)
If you’re thinking about attending
the 179th Oktoberfest
, there’s still time. It runs September 22 -October 7 in Munich, Germany. Just in case you’re planning a trip, we’ve assembled some tips for how you can use Google tools like Flight Search, Hotel Finder, Maps and Transit to help you plan an amazing trip -- whether you’re using your desktop, laptop or on your Android device.
If you want to figure out the best beer tents to visit, this
Google Map
will be a great place to turn during the event (will be live 09/22/12). When the pin over the tent is green, the tent still has seating and is open. When the pin is red, the tent is closed because of overfilling.
My favorite tent is the Hippodrom, a smaller tent frequented by a younger crowd -- and recently discovered by celebrities. It offers beer -- of course -- but also has a sekt (sparkling wine) bar that is pretty stylish. You should plan on arriving early if you want to visit.
You can also see live pics from Oktoberfest by clicking on various webcams on the
map
. This capability is very useful in providing information to help you choose the tents you’re most interested in visiting.
You might also want to plan ahead and consider the crowds and traffic. With Google Maps for Android, you can take a look at live traffic to see if you want to drive -- or choose to just walk, bike or take transit.
If you want to see more of Germany, you can use
Google Transit
to reach other cities such as Hamburg or Frankfurt. This navigation tool includes information about Deutsche Bahn (DB) trains and recommends the best transit options, taking into account various factors such as duration and number of Umstiege (transfers/stops). The options are then shown on the map, along with time, train type and duration of the trip. This is especially handy because it’s possible to click through from the transit options page, to purchase your tickets on
bahn.de
without needing to reenter the dates!
And if you’re a non-Bavarian who doesn’t speak German, don’t worry. You can use Google Translate or the official
Oktoberfest dictionary
to communicate with the locals.
So now that your interest is piqued, you’ll probably want to plan a trip right away. You can do so by going to
www.google.com
and searching for [flights to Munich]. Your departure city will be automatically recognized; mine was New York City. As you change your dates, prices will instantly update.
I prefer nonstop flights, so I clicked on “Nonstop” to get a list of flight times available at the $1,073 USD price and then evaluated various attributes of the flights -- including the cost of checked bags for this ticket. Once I picked the flights that worked for me, I clicked the red “Book” button to make my booking via the airline’s website.
Finally, you can use Hotel Finder to find hotels near Oktoberfest in Munich. You can do this by going to
www.google.com/hotelfinder
and entering [Oktoberfest Munich, Germany], along with the dates you plan to be in town. You can use the reviews, images, ratings and pricing information to create a shortlist. Once I selected the hotel I was interested in, I used the red booking button which took me to
www.booking.com
to complete my reservation.
We hope you found these tips helpful. Whether you end up hitting the Wiesn tents this October, or visiting Germany at some point in the future, we hope to help you plan your trip and connect with travel suppliers with ease.
Posted by Noam Ben Haim, Senior Product Manager, Travel
Power Searching with Google is back
September 11, 2012
(Cross-posted on the
Google Student Blog
)
If you missed
Power Searching with Google
a few months ago
or were unable to complete the course the first time around, now’s your chance to
sign up again
for our free online course that aims to empower our users with the tools and knowledge to find what they’re looking for more quickly and easily.
The community-based course features six 50-minute classes along with interactive activities and the opportunity to hear from search experts and Googlers about how search works. Beginning September 24, you can take the classes over a two-week period, share what you learn with other students in a community forum, and complete the course assessments to earn a certificate of completion.
During the course’s first run in July, people told us how they not only liked learning about new features and more efficient ways to use Google, but they also enjoyed sharing tips and learning from one another through the forums and Hangouts. Ninety-six percent of people who completed the course also said they liked the format and would be interested in taking similar courses, so we plan to offer a suite of upcoming courses in the coming months, including Advanced Power Searching.
Stay tuned for further announcements on those upcoming courses, and don’t forget to
register now for
Power Searching with Google
. You’ll learn about things like how to search by color, image, and time and how to solve harder trivia questions like our
A Google a Day
questions. We’ll see you when we start up in two weeks!
Posted by Dan Russell, Uber Tech Lead, Search Quality & User Happiness
Find smarter, more comprehensive Search by Image results
July 2, 2012
Since its launch last year, people have been using
Search by Image
to do everything from tracking down the origins of old photographs to more exotic applications like
search by drawing
,
recursive search by image
, and creating
photomosaics
. To continue making Search by Image more useful, almost every week we launch changes to the algorithms that power this feature. Some of these recent changes include:
Smarter best guesses
When you search with an image, we use computer vision to try and figure out what the image represents, and then show you a “Best guess for this image.”
There are times when we may get it wrong or we won’t show any guess at all. However, we’ve made recent improvements to provide “best guesses” for more images more often and make the guesses more accurate. For instance, now you’ll see that the image above is not just a “flower,” but more specifically, that it is a
bird of paradise
, which is popular in Hawaii.
Knowledge Graph results
With the recent launch of the
Knowledge Graph
, Google is starting to understand the world the way people do. Instead of treating webpages as strings of letters like “dog” or “kitten,” we can understand the concepts behind these words. Search by Image now uses the Knowledge Graph: if you search with an image that we’re able to recognize, you may see an extra panel of information along with your normal search results so you can learn more. This could be a biography of a famous person, information about a plant or animal, or much
more
.
(Tip: In Chrome or Firefox 3.0+, images from the Knowledge Graph area can be dragged into the search box to start another search!)
More comprehensive search results
Finding more information about an image is the most common use of Search by Image. Very often this information is found on websites that contain either your image or images that look like it. We’ve made recent improvements to our freshness, so when photos of major news stories start appearing on the Internet, you can often find the news stories associated with those photos within minutes of the stories being posted. We’ve also expanded our index so you can find more sites that contain your image and information related to it.
Before, you would see only one site with this image you searched for.
Now
, you see more information and sites with that image.
Try Search by Image by simply uploading or dragging-and-dropping a photo into the search box on Google Images. You can check out our
video
for all the ways you can search using an image, and you can also download the
Chrome
or
Firefox
extensions to make searching photos from any website even easier.
Posted by Sean O’Malley, Software Engineer
Become a Google power searcher
June 26, 2012
(Cross-posted on the
Official Google Blog
)
You may already be familiar with some shortcuts for Google Search, like using the search box as a calculator or finding local movie showtimes by typing [movies] and your zip code. But there are many more tips, tricks and tactics you can use to find exactly what you’re looking for, when you most need it.
Today, we’ve opened
registration
for
Power Searching with Google
, a free, online, community-based course showcasing these techniques and how you can use them to solve everyday problems. Our course is aimed at empowering you to find what you need faster, no matter how you currently use search. For example, did you know that you can search for and read pages written in languages you’ve never even studied? Identify the location of a picture your friend took during his vacation a few months ago? How about finally identifying that green-covered book about gardening that you’ve been trying to track down for years? You can learn all this and more over six 50-minute classes.
Lessons will be released daily starting on July 10, 2012, and you can take them according to your own schedule during a two-week window, alongside a worldwide community. The lessons include interactive activities to practice new skills, and many opportunities to connect with others using Google tools such as Google Groups, Moderator and Google+, including Hangouts on Air, where world-renowned search experts will answer your questions on how search works. Googlers will also be on hand during the course period to help and answer your questions in case you get stuck.
Power Searching with Google
blends the
MOOC
(Massive Open Online Course) learning format
pioneered by Stanford and MIT
with our social and communication tools to create what we hope is a true community learning experience.
Visit the
course homepage
to learn more. By the end of this course, you'll know several new techniques that will make you a Google Power Searcher and help you find out information about whatever you can imagine—from how to prepare for a new family pet to where moss grows on Stonehenge or how to grow katniss in your garden. Sign up now!
Posted by
Terry Ednacot
, Education Program Manager
Find places faster with quick access to local info on the go
May 25, 2012
I'll admit it, I'm a bit of a picky eater. If I'm choosing a restaurant, I want to know that it has good reviews, that they'll have food items I like, that it's not too expensive, and all that. With the new changes to the local listings in search on mobile devices, now I'll be able to see more details about places quickly and make decisions more easily -- whether about restaurants or any other type of place.
For example, if I search for [restaurants dallas] on my mobile phone now, I'm presented with a list of local results as usual. Now, if I click on the name of the place, I instantly see a summary of the business, with reviews, photos, and more details, similar to the
local information you see when searching on your computer
. Okay, this place looks fine, but what about the other results from the list? With a simple swipe of the page left or right, I can see the local result before or after this one, to quickly compare the different options and make a decision on where to eat.
This is available worldwide on Android and iOS devices. Now I can't wait to go traveling and try this out when I'm hungry elsewhere in the world!
Posted by Dan Zivkovic, Software Engineer
Test your search skills with A Google a Day now on Google+
May 14, 2012
A Google a Day
is the trivia game where searching for the answer on Google is not only allowed but encouraged. Since
launching A Google a Day
a year ago, millions of people have played and learned new trivia facts along with new ways to use Google search. Over the past year, you may have seen some questions written by our
celebrity guest authors
(
Jane Goodall
,
Taylor Swift
, and
Vanessa Carlton
, to name a few) and learned a search trick or two along the way.
One piece of feedback we’ve continually heard from people is that they want to be able to share their scores, challenge their friends, and answer more than one question a day. So today, we’re introducing a new and improved version of A Google a Day on Google+ that makes the trivia more collaborative and fun.
Now you’ll be able to challenge your friends to a test of trivia and search speed and figure out who’s the expert at discovering little known facts about literature, history, or science. Race to the top of the leaderboard and earn bragging rights to show off your master search skills. Through fast-paced competition and an exciting battle of the wits, we hope the new A Google a Day game triggers your imagination about all the types of questions you can ask Google.
Check out a sample question below:
Start playing A Google a Day now—
Click here
to access the new version of the game (you’ll be prompted to log into your Google+ account) or look for A Google a Day in the Games section of Google+. The clues are currently only in English, but anyone can attempt to solve the puzzles. And let us know what you think on our
Google+ page
(tag your posts with #agoogleaday), on Twitter at @
agoogleaday
, or at
agoogleaday@google.com
.
Posted by Dan Russell, User Experience Researcher
Helping students become savvy searchers with our new Search Education hub
May 2, 2012
The other day, some students and I were looking at a picture on a website, identified only as a page from an old encyclopedia. We wanted to find the original source, and tried dragging the picture into the Google Images search box, triggering the
Search by Image
tool. Image Search matched the picture with others copies found on the web: not only did we
find the original source
(an encyclopedia from 1826!)--we found a whole new world of information.
The students’ eyes lit up when they understood there was a technological answer to a problem they commonly encounter, and one which helped them increase the quality of their work as well. The technology gave them the opportunity to be detectives and ferret out the “truth” behind an image.
In the interest of creating more of these magical moments for students, we’re pleased to announce our new
Search Education website
, bringing educators the tools they need to help students become savvy searchers and independent learners.
Learning to tap the full potential of Google Search empowers students in both their academic and daily pursuits. Search education provides the technical tools and critical thinking skills crucial to preparing today’s students to be technologically self-reliant, independent learners.
For the past several years, the Google Search Education team has offered classes to help educators around the world discover Google Search tools that allow for great precision and depth in academic research. Knowing how to search has so many benefits, but we know teachers need materials in order to teach these skills. That’s why we created our new Search Education hub, complete with lesson plans based upon the Common Core State Standards and “A Google a Day” search challenges, as well as trainings you can watch.
We look forward to hearing about your experiences teaching search techniques in the classroom, and receiving feedback that will help us continually improve Search Education offerings. Feel free to drop us a line at
search-educators@google.com
.
Posted by Tasha Bergson-Michelson, Google Search Educator
Graphing on Google.com - Now in 3D
March 30, 2012
A few months ago we launched a
graphing functionality
right in search to help students and math lovers plot functions in an easy, simple way. In addition to calculating something simple like dividing up a restaurant bill or graphing more
difficult math functions
using the search box, people have also been plotting some really
unique
and
interesting
functions. You’ll be able to do even more with the graphing calculator, which now supports 3D plotting as well.
Just type any real
two variable function
into Google to see a dynamic, interactive, three dimensional plot. Click anywhere in the graph to rotate it to check out different angles, or scale the view by zooming in or out, or by editing the range in your equation or in the lower-right legend box. For example, if you’re a student studying advanced calculus, the ability to see a three dimensional graph will help you get a better visualization for real two variable functions.
This feature is enabled by a technology called
WebGL
, which we’re using for the first time in Google Search. WebGL is a new web technology that brings hardware-accelerated 3D graphics to the browser without the need to install additional software. This technology is currently supported on modern web browsers such as Chrome and Firefox.
This feature is available globally, so now millions of students can explore and interact with compound math functions right in their search results. We can’t wait to see what kind of
interesting
functions
you’ll plot!
Posted by Adi Avidor, Google Engineer and Math Lover
Find flights to destinations worldwide
March 15, 2012
(Cross-posted on the
ITA Software by Google blog
)
If you’re in the U.S. and thinking of hitting the slopes in the Swiss Alps or heading to Sydney for a getaway, you can now use
Flight Search
to find and book a flight quickly and easily.
Since we
launched
Flight Search, we’ve heard from many globetrotters eager to use the feature to search for destinations outside the U.S. Starting today, you can find flights, including international destinations, from the U.S. quickly and conveniently.
As you consider vacation possibilities, maybe you’d like to go to Australia but are flexible to fly into either Sydney or Perth based on whichever fare is more affordable. A quick click over each city on the map will show the different options available to you almost instantly -- and click the chart next to the dates to show alternative dates so you can make the best choice for your trip.
Likewise, if you’re looking to hop over to Europe for a weekend from New York City and are flexible with your departure and arrival airports, you can see the options for your gateway. We hope you have fun with our latest update to Flight Search.
At this stage we've included more than 500 airports outside the U.S. If your ideal destination isn't yet available, we're working hard on expanding our global coverage and adding more routes in the future. Our goal is to make booking travel as fast and enjoyable as possible.
Posted by Eric Zimmerman, Product Manager
Introducing a new local search experience across your devices
March 5, 2012
(Cross-posted on the
Google Mobile Blog
)
How often are you doing a Google search from your computer to find information about a place before going there? Now, next time you go to Google.com on your Android phone or iPhone, information about that place will be conveniently available under the new “Recent” icon. Calling, getting directions or seeing details about the places you just searched for is now only one tap away.
We provide this new convenience feature for users who have
Web History
enabled and are logged into Google when doing their search. Start by
searching for a place
on your PC or other devices, then login to Google.com’s mobile homepage and check the Recent icon. Information about previously searched places will be available under the Recent icon for about three days.
The new “Recent” icon shows information about places you have recently searched for on any of your devices. Try swiping to the right to see more icons for other categories of places.
Next time you are heading to a place you have recently searched for, no need to worry if you can’t remember the address or phone number. Just go to Google.com on your smartphone and tap on the “Recent” icon. We hope you find this new feature useful!
Posted by Junichi Uekawa, Software Engineer
Update March 22: Edited to reflect that local information will be available for about three days.
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