Google unveils Sky Map for Android and robust search tools
Google?s Searchology event sees the search giant offer more robust functionality to searchers
At Google?s second
Searchology event, the search giant debuted a number of new products and features including more robust search options and a new application for its Android mobile device.
Google?s spokespeople, Marissa Mayer, vice president of search products and user experience and Jack Menzel, Google?s group product manager say that users are becoming more sophisticated searchers ? which means that Google is being asked to deliver equally sophisticated results.
Mayer and Menzel say, ?We have spent a lot of time looking at how we can better understand the wide range of information that?s on the web and connect people to just the nuggets they need at that moment. We want to help our users find more useful information, and do more useful things with it.?
To this end, Google launched a new feature called Search Options, which is a collection of tools that lets users tailor the type of results they see in a more efficient and specific manner. One of the tools in Search Options enables users to more easily tap into collective peer opinions by specifically choosing only to search results in forums and discussion boards.
Going a step further, a Google search user will be able to organise search results by most to least recent. Mayer and Menzel add, ?We think of the Search Options panel as a tool belt that gives you new ways to interact with Google Search, and we plan to fill it with more innovative and useful features in the future.?
Additional improvements to Google Search to be rolled out in the near future include improved ?
snippet? information with rich data such as ratings and Google Squared, which will present the user with facts gathered from multiple resources as opposed to websites related to a search. Google launched its popular Universal Search, a feature that blends different content types (video, images, books, websites etc) into search results at its first Searchology event in 2007.
Google also took the opportunity to unveil a new application for its Android mobile device, ?
Google Sky Map.? Sky Map allows Android handset owners to point their mobile phone to the sky to learn about the stars, constellations and planets are above them. John Taylor, software engineer at Google explained, ?Sky Map turns your Android-powered mobile phone into a dynamic window on the night sky. The next time you see a bright star and want to know what it?s called, Sky Map can help you identify it.?
Last month, Google presented at (and was a major sponsor of) the International World Wide Web Conference (
WWW 2009) in Madrid, where it demonstrated the results of its Google Earth and Museo del Prado partnership. The
collaboration between the museum and the search giant allows art lovers to zoom in on some of the gallery?s more popular portraits using Google Earth. Google say this is just one contribution they are making to the arts, with users being able to zoom in so close (the resolution is reportedly up to 14,000 megapixels) they can see individual brush strokes and cracks in the varnish clearly, allowing them to experience the work more intimately.
April also saw another investment to the arts by Google, with the
live performance of the YouTube Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall in New York. The orchestra, made of musicians who
auditioned
by submitting a video on Google-owned YouTube, played under the direction of
artistic advisor and conductor Michael Tilson Thomas. The YouTube
Symphony Orchestra was made up of 96 musicians from more than 30
countries that spent two and a half days in rehearsal.
Google?s founders unveiled its search engine to the world at the WWW conference in 1998.
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