IT and Society: Google unveils tool to speed up searches

Google has confirmed its intentions regarding the proactive or autonomous search – the system which will predict user’s future actions and offer relevant information in advance without needing to input search queries on the PC or mobile phone.

Google, which owns the largest search engine in the world, is going to free users from the necessity to search information, making relevant information find users itself, told Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president for search products and user experience, at the LeWeb 2010 conference in Paris.

This revolution in Google is expected to be implemented step by step. The company has recently launched an instant search tool which predicts Internet search queries – and users of IE, Firefox, Chrome and Safari can see the results as soon as they begin to type, thus the tool adjusts the results as each successive letter is typed. Another step will become an automated provision of relevant content directly while net-surfing – necessary information may appear in a separate window without interfering with the main process.

The prediction technology, intended to meet user’s needs, will be available on cell phones as well. A case in point, user will get a chance to receive a restaurant menu as soon as he enters the restaurant and occupies the table. It is indeed already possible however it hasn’t been unified yet.

In autumn 2010 similar idea was described by Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco. He claimed that one day Google’s search would become automated. It will analyze user’s history, his preferences, likes and dislikes to predict his query.