Google Labs Adds Similar Images and News Timeline Search

Just yesterday Ask.com brought back Jeeves in an attempt to fight back against Google, so it is very apt that today Google released two new experimental products that will hopefully change the way we search – and in the meantime add nails to the coffin the likes of Ask.com and Yahoo.

The two new ideas in question are ‘Similar Images’ and ‘Timeline’ both of which are very different from what we’ve seen before, and both of which should not only boost Google’s popularity but also raise awareness of the ‘Labs’ section of Google which has been given a little bit of a makeover.

Before I go on to have a look at the new ideas I think it’s worth having a look at the ‘Labs’ section and seeing what kind of stuff is actually in there. Everyone knows that Google doesn’t just do searches – the Google Maps, Google Mail and Google Chrome Browser are perhaps the three best known – but some of the lesser known services like labs, finance and book search are all very impressive and surprisingly overlooked.

The Labs idea has been subject to quite a lot of criticism as people believed the too much time and effort was wasted on Labs – the main aim of which is to all users to see what kind of prototypes engineers are working on. But this attempt to enhance innovation has finally come into the public eye with Timeline and Similar Images.

Similar Images Search

Firstly I’ll look at similar images which is essentially a way of making it easier to find what you are looking for, and like Radhika Malpani (Google’s director of engineering) I will use the example of ‘Paris’ to explain how this works.

If you type ‘Paris’ into Google’s similar image search you will get a selection of pictures about Paris (capital of France), Paris Hilton and Parisian Architecture. With ‘Similar images’ you will be able to click on ‘similar images’ under the picture which will just give you pictures on that subject – in this case you could click on ‘similar images’ under a picture of the Eiffel tower to just get images related to Paris the city.

This could well make significant inroads into making image searching a lot more effective and could help to stop the thousands of irrelevant images that a search for anything will throw up at you, something that will set Google ahead of the rest – again!

News Timeline Search

The second ‘service’ is one called ‘Timeline’ which allow you to view your search results (including news articles, photographs and videos) in chronological order on a timeline allowing you to easily find the one you want quickly and efficiently.

However you can also refine your searches to certain categories (e.g. Movies, Books, Artwork, Blogs and News) the most useful of which is Sports Scores – allowing you to easily browse the scores of your favourite team in time order. Predictably this is only really for American teams (so no ‘proper’ football I’m afraid!) but if this proves successful I wouldn’t be surprised to see it expand to include UK teams.

Summary

So, two new services to their already impressive line-up, and just another problem for Yahoo, MSN and Ask.com to overcome in their attempt to claw back some of the market. Some may say they are becoming too dominant (and that definitely could be a problem) but so long as they keep developing things to help enhance people’s we experience I don’t think many people will be complaining!

Via – Google Labs

Related Pages:

1. Google To Lose Murdoch’s Newspapers To Microsoft’s Bing Search Engine?
2. Wolfram Alpha Released! But Is It Useful?
3. Bing Search Engine More Popular Than Yahoo?
4. Microsoft and Yahoo Finally Strike A Search Engine Deal
5. Google Street View (UK)

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