
Life 'In The Plex': The Future Of Google - solipsist
http://www.npr.org/2011/04/04/135023714/life-in-the-plex-the-future-of-google
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dstein

      People used it to search for information. You would ask 
      it a question, and it would immediately give you the 
      answer from huge repositories of information it had gathered
    

I found this part rather funny. They blatantly lied to this man. Google
doesn't give you direct answers immediately, and they never will because
that's not how Google makes moey. Instead they present you with dozens of SEO
optimized links and paid advertisements that might (but usually don't) contain
relevant information.

~~~
orangecat
_Google doesn't give you direct answers immediately, and they never will
because that's not how Google makes moey._

<http://www.google.com/search?q=90210+weather>

<http://www.google.com/search?q=2%2B3>

<http://www.google.com/search?q=aapl>

~~~
dstein
I obviously wasn't referring to Google's canned responses which offer no real
insight or understanding. The description they gave make it sound like
futuristic AI, when clearly its not. Let me know when Google approaches IBM's
Watson level.

[http://www.google.com/search?q=is+five+dollars+more+than+8+c...](http://www.google.com/search?q=is+five+dollars+more+than+8+cents&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&client=safari)

~~~
Dn_Ab
That is like saying a racecar tuned for closed tracks is more impressive than
a general purpose modern car because its faster. Both leverage the same
principles and similar components but with different focuses and optimize for
different results. Watson is not futuristic when compared to what Google does,
its mainly its packaging that makes it so readily impressive.

Google are focused on different goals. Watson is optimized to list a set of
confidence weighted answers/hypotheses. Google is optimized to surface a list
of relevance and authority weighted documents. A Watson like google is
orthogonal and could essentially be another UX on top of regular google that
would completely transform the product to a different set of use cases.

Your example is easy when run through an engine that's tuned for it. But it
does look like google is experimenting.

[http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=is+6+dollars+less+than+...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=is+6+dollars+less+than+5+pounds)

[http://www.google.com/search?q=who+produced+all+of+the+light...](http://www.google.com/search?q=who+produced+all+of+the+lights)

[http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=who+produced+all+of+the...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=who+produced+all+of+the+lights)

~~~
thamer
Re: “is 6 dollars less than 5 pounds”, this is how Wolfram Alpha interpreted
it: “TrueQ[$6 (US dollars)<5 lb (pounds)] ”. It interpreted pounds as a unit
of mass, not as the currency and gave “False” as a result.

You have to pick “British Pounds” from a list of other interpretations in
order to get the right answer, “True”.

I don't know what it says about your argument, other than it's hard to tune
the engine.

~~~
muyuu
Worked for me (interpreted "pounds" as "British pounds")

