Will Google take the million dollar challenge?!

Google will have to keep working on it before applying. It's a good guesser, but not "psychic."

Google Instant: Quick, Quick, Quick–But Not Psychic ‎
PC World
Harry McCracken, Technologizer
Sep 8, 2010

...
That announcement was the launch of Google Instant, a new interface for the world's dominant search engine. It's rolling out in the U.S. right now-you can also get to it at www.google.com/instant-and the goal is to provide relevant search results before you've even finished typing your query. Instant, in other words, aims to give you what you really meant, quick, quick, quick. (The feature will come to other countries, browser search fields, and mobile phones in the months to come.)
...
So far, I haven't found Instant to be the great leap forward that Google seems to think it is. But neither does it feel like a New Coke-syle fiasco. For one thing, the change isn't being forced down anyone's throat: It's easy to turn it off and go back to classic Google search. There's also an easy way to split the difference between Google Instant and old Google: Rather than paying attention to search suggestions and results, you can just type your entire search query. And then stop. You'll get the results you would have seen in the old days, without having to press Enter and wait for them to show up.
...
Click to expand...
Full: PC World
 
Google is 'psychic' in the same sense that the '20 questions' electronic game is 'psychic'. It seems creepy until you run some simple math, and realize that by dividing a pretty complete dictionary by 26 with each letter typed, and using some simple predictive algorithms based on what OTHER people commonly search for, you can play a good guessing game with what's being typed. The '20 questions' game manages to sort from a huge set of physical objects by repeatedly dividing in half, so a fast sort by dividing by 26 shouldn't be that surprising.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom