Hasta La Gadget!

When I look at what Google is feeding me every day, my first reaction is to be thrilled at how cool it is that there’s an engine out there that sees what I like and give it to me. Automatic understanding, seeing what I search for and where I am, telling me things I aught to know. Things other people know.

It is easier to find something I’ve already worked with in Google than it is to find something I’ve never seen before. While data stacks up, webpages are made and emails are sent, the dominant method for organization is a search based on sameness. Because I’ve visited SlashGear.com so very many times in the past, whenever I’m logged in to Google, SlashGear-related search results appear first for essentially anything technology or science related.

If I’m logged in to Google and I want to find a review of a smartphone, the search engine will suggest I read the most popular reviews. Is this crowd-sourced and traffic-reliant system good enough to be the one single organizer of information on the internet?

With the system known as Google Now, a series of “cards” are presented on a smartphone or tablet screen. The cards are organized automatically unless I change my preferences: I can choose to include or keep out sports scores, for example. These cards show bits of information based on what I’ve searched for most in Google while logged-in to my Google account.

So while I enjoy a note about how long it will take me to get home based on my GPS location and traffic, Google Now sends me news stories automatically sourced as related to a story I clicked on earlier inside Google. These results are also based on traffic, showing the most popular stories based on clicked through Google.

Birthdays are shown as well – every single person I’ve got in Circles through Google+ is shown in a stack of cards when their birthday comes up. This situation was spoken about by my colleague Chris Davies in the column “Why nobody, not even Apple, has done mobile right.”

“And yet, our needs from a companion device are surely different from those we have of a regular computer. I don’t necessarily want every single piece of information out there delivered to the palm of my hand; I just want the right, most relevant information. You can find that on a phone, certainly, but for it to be a true companion it really should be one step ahead of what you need. Some emails, or IMs, or calls, are more important than others, but my phone beeps for all of them. Sometimes I don’t know what the most relevant information actually is, or that it’s even out there, and my digital wingman should be using everything it knows about me to fill in those gaps of its own accord.” – Chris Davies

But then again – is discovery lost? When a device like Google Now on Glass “knows” what I want and give it to me automatically, what does that leave me with?

Google can know only the information I’ve given it – be it direct with a search or indirect as my smartphone tells Google Now my GPS location on the regular. Until a system can be built that can collect all of my thoughts and experiences, no exceptions, the feedback I get from the systems I use today will be on some level arbitrary to my needs.

Until a system can be built to access my full experience, there’s always going to be a push involved that a group like Google cannot do away with. There’s always a suggestion: is this what you want? And that suggestion remains based on popular precedent to this day.

In other words: brilliance will not be found in search results until this paradigm is altered. Until true random elements are incorporated alongside an understanding of the human mind we do not have a grasp on yet, the dream that is invisible technology cannot be realized correctly.

This dream was spoken about by Larry Page at Google I/O 2013, where he suggested that “Technology should do the hard work, so you can get on and live your life.” He also mentioned that, with regard to Google search results being curated, “the right solution to education is not randomness.”

It’s a balance we must meet. At the moment, we live in an environment that continues to be dominated by popular opinion.

Google Now tells me who I was, making me dumber with Sameness is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Google’s new “conversational search” feature for Chrome has quietly been enabled, with the new feature appearing in the latest version of Google’s browser. Announced at I/O, the new Voice Search feature builds on the existing ability for Chrome to accept spoken search terms, now listing out your query on screen as you say it, and then able to show the results in Google Now-style cards as well as reading out the answer.

That’s not the only improvement, however. The system also supports semantics across repeated searches; so, for instance, if you ask a follow-up question, Google will automatically understand that the two queries are related.

If you ask “When was Ford founded?” for instance, Google will now read out the answer. You can then ask a follow-up like “Where is its headquarters?” and, even though you did not specify you were still asking about Ford, Google will still understand that it’s the topic of inquiry.

At the heart of this contextual awareness is Google’s Knowledge Graph technology, revealed last year, and integrated with natural language processing. That way, search knows that some queries will be about people – perhaps referred to as “he” or “she” in follow-up questions – while others will be about objects or companies.

More impressive are the compound assumptions that search can now make. Ask Chrome if it will rain tomorrow, and it will tell you the forecast (as well as display it on-screen): automatically figuring out where you are, and that you may want a full forecast.

Still absent is so-called “hotword search” as on Google Glass, which allows you to wake the system with a spoken command – “OK Glass” in the case of the wearable – and then begin asking queries. That seems likely to arrive sometime soon, though, especially given Microsoft has built something similar into Xbox One.

Overall, the technology is further evidence of Google’s greater confidence in its own results, and in showing users what it believes they’re looking for rather than just a list of possibilities. That’s something Matias Duarte, director of Android user experience, described to us as a key part of Google Now back at MWC, an endeavor which has applications across Google’s range: desktop, Chromebook, Android, and Glass.

You’ll need to be running the latest version of Chrome in order to get access to the new voice search functionality, and you may have to be patient, too. Google appears to be suffering some teething problems scaling out the system, and we’re getting a lot of “No internet connection” error messages right now.

VIA Engadget; Search Engine Land

Google Conversational Search turned on in Chrome update is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Microsoft is continuously adding new features to its Bing search engine, and this time around the company has added integration for Facebook that allows users of the social networking site to comment and Like stuff directly in Bing search results. Microsoft has been researching ways to distinguish itself from Google, and it seems social is the way to go for them.

After you log in with your Microsoft account and connect your Facebook account to Bing, you will discover that you can view comments on Facebook posts in the sidebar inside of the search engine. From there, you can comment and “like” posts without having to visit the Facebook homepage. Whenever you search for something, Bing will automatically bring up any relevant Facebook posts from friends, whether or not they’re recent.

The social sidebar that’s included in Bing has been a feature for a while now, allowing users to connect their Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, or Klout accounts to receive relevant posts from friends on social networks regarding search queries that you make to Bing. Google has a similar sidebar, known as Knowledge Graph, that brings up any third-party relevant info during a search.

This is just another example of the close relationship between Microsoft and Facebook. The social network’s new Graph Search tool, for example, includes results from Bing search on top of Facebook’s own results, so the relationship and integration between the two services goes both ways.

VIA: PC World

SOURCE: Microsoft Bing Blog

Microsoft’s Bing integrates Facebook Likes and comments is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

This week the until-now Android-exclusive system Google Now reaches out to iOS inside the Google Search app for Apple’s iPad and iPhone. Both versions are tuned to the display size they appear on, with sets of “cards” appearing in a single column for iPhone and a set of two columns for iPad. These cards contain information about current events and the environment around the user based on their search history and interests.

Much like the Android version of Google Now, this interface shows several different kinds of cards, each of them containing information based on the unique user that’s using them. If a user has worked with Google Now outside of iOS before they sign in initially, they’ll find cards based on their use of Google waiting for them. In our example here, two sports teams recent game scores appear, a map to work appears, and several birthday announcements appear.

Google Now is part of a user’s Google Search experience, meaning they’ll be getting results – cards, that is – based on what they’ve worked with in the past for search terms. If a user has never searched for anything in Google while being logged in to their Google account at the same time, results will appear as example cards. Example cards show what COULD be displayed for the user if they’d agree to have their search results utilized.

With the iPhone and iPad versions of Google Now, it would appear at first that the user’s calendar will not be used as it would in an Android device. If one does use Google Calendar separate from iOS, they’ll still be able to see dates of Birthdays, connections to events, and etcetera. Birthday announcements can be sourced from a user’s Google+ social networking account as well, as this connection is also made possible via the user’s all-encompassing Google account.

One of the key reasons a user might prefer using Google Now with an Android device rather than with an iOS device is their ability to access the system easily. With some Android devices, the user is able to hold their finger down on their on-screen home button and swipe up to move into Google Now. Some devices working with Android allow access to Google Now with a long-press of a back or menu button.

Intrepid iOS hackers have already made inroads to similar access with apps like “Activator”. This app allows Jailbroken (read: hacked) iPhones to launch apps using a variety of gestures and button presses. Tie your home button to Google Now for a real slick experience.

Users will be able to check this Google Now experience out by updating (or downloading) Google Search for iOS on their iPhone or iPad starting today. Let us know how you’re liking it – or if you’re avoiding it – in our Google Now chat in Google+ right this minute!

Google Now for iPad and iPhone hands-on: Exclusivity Ends is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

A trial of Google’s attempts to avoid European Union censure around anti-competitive search behaviors looks set to struggle to gain necessary agreement from rivals, with the concessions in testing insufficient to satisfy the complaints. The EC announced yesterday that it would begin a month-long test of Google’s proposed methods to dilute the over-dominance of the European search market that it has been accused of, including giving three rival services positions on its results page right next to its own. However, the concessions are already failing to win over critics.

First out the gate is European consumer association the BEUC, which took issue with Google’s offer to flag up – with a border or some other method – results that had been prioritized from its own services, such as Google Shopping. “We do not think [Google’s] proposals can credible achieve these targets” the agency says, pointing out that the highlighting system might perversely work in Google’s favor.

“Labelling results will do little or indeed nothing to prevent Google from manipulating search results and discriminating against competing services” the BEUC argues. “It may even shepherd consumers towards clicking on Google services now highlighted in a frame.”

“Infringements of competition rules call for strong and rigorous structural remedies where needed, going beyond the halfway house of consumer information. Labelling an infringement of competition law doesn’t prevent it being an infringement” BEUC

Meanwhile, Fairsearch Europe – a group made up of Microsoft, Nokia, Trip Advisor, and others – has also weighed in, similarly unimpressed, and promising “empirical evidence” as to why Google’s proposed salves simple won’t do.

We have always said that the best remedy for consumers and innovation would be to require Google to apply the same policy to search results for its own products as it does to all others. “Google’s proposed commitments appear to fall short of ending the preferential treatment at the heart of the Commission’s case based on formal complaints from 17 companies” Fairsearch argues, and alleges that in fact Google is still demanding preferential treatment.

“Google’s own screen shots in its proposal shows it seeks approval to continue preferential treatment for its own products” Fairsearch Europe

The BEUC also takes issue with the idea of Google self-governing its modifications, a route which it claims will lead only to another type of dominance in European search. “The proposal to display links to three rival specialised services raises the natural question of who decides the promotional criteria” BEUC points out. “If that is Google, it leaves too much discretion in their lap while most importantly, not solving the problem of non-discriminatory choices for consumers.”

The EC had proposed installing an “independent Monitoring Trustee” if the month-long trial went well, who would be responsible for making sure Google stuck to its agreements for the full length of the five-year concessions.

However, the BEUC has more stringent suggestions [pdf link] for how the matter should be resolved, including Google giving no highlighted placement to any of its own products, and instead “crawl, index, and rank its own services in exactly the same way it does everybody else.” The organization also wants tougher penalties should Google not comply, though the EC can currently fine the company up to 10-percent of its global revenues under existing rules.

[via Guardian]

Google’s Euro search concessions already facing rival rejection is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.