Google Suggest

Cristiano writes "As you type into the search box, Google Suggest guesses what you're typing and offers suggestions in real time. This is similar to Google's 'Did you mean?' feature that offers alternative spellings for your query after you search, except that it works in real time." It crashes Konqueror, but works nicely on Mozilla. Update: 12/11 by J : The engineer who thought of it, then built it in his "20% time," blogs about the process.

Comments

/. Spelling

[Zorilla]

> loose

Google
------
Did you mean: lose?

Yeah, Slashdot needs this badly.

Re:/. Spelling

[MillionthMonkey]

When I type "loose" it doesn't suggest "lose".

It does suggest "loose women".

Re:/. Spelling

[RobertB-DC]

When I type "loose" it doesn't suggest "lose".

It does suggest "loose women".

It also suggests "loose weight". I can't believe how many web sites there are devoted to loosing weight. I guess that's the origin of the term, "to throw your weight around" -- so many people loosing it, and throwing weight will certainly loose it. What a bunch of loosers.

(and looking at that paragraph long enough makes me wonder if I've loosed it, myself)

Re:/. Spelling

[Tatarize]

I was going for "Pretty" but after I got "pret" in there it started suggesting preteen girls and such.

I'd hate to see it if it wasn't striking down entries. For example "sex" comes up with total blanks. No "sex addition" or anything, so its obviously removing stuff but apparently not flawlessly.

Reminds me a great google game. Turn strict search filtering on on google images and try and find porn using single word. My record is 2nd image with "cameltoe".

Cool! Just like form AutoComplete

[GillBates0]

but with a HUGE database/archive of possible candidates at it's disposal.

Wonder how it'll hold up when it gets out Beta though...it's bound to be pretty computationally intensive.

Re:Cool! Just like form AutoComplete

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder how long before spammers use this maliciously to create word lists to direct traffic.

Re:Cool! Just like form AutoComplete

[mdf356]

It's surviving a slashdotting. What more do you want?

Cheers,
Matt

Re:Cool! Just like form AutoComplete

[dustinbarbour]

Yes, it would be intensive for their server should everyone decide to use it in place of standrd Google search. However, the algorithm behind their "Did you mean" runs in O(n^2) worst case and O(n) best case. Not too shabby.. The algorithm is what makes it possible.

Re:Cool! Just like form AutoComplete

[ciroknight]

This is why Google is such an awesome concept.

Instant access to any piece of human knowledge, and it now can guess what you are looking for right as you can type. The only next improvement I can think of is if it did related searches to the term you searched for, but I'm not sure how you would represent all of that data at once. Leave it to the Google geniuses ;)

Re:Cool! Just like form AutoComplete

[eln]

big-O notation

(definition)

Definition: A theoretical measure of the execution of an algorithm, usually the time or memory needed, given the problem size n, which is usually the number of items. Informally, saying some equation f(n) = O(g(n)) means it is less than some constant multiple of g(n). The notation is read, "f of n is big oh of g of n".

Strangely enough, I got this definition from a Google search.

Re:Cool! Just like form AutoComplete

[Chris Mattern]

Nice, but not answering his question. He didn't ask what O(n) was, he asked what n is, and that's a legitimate question. What *is* n? What is the determining factor of problem size for this algorithm? The number of characters the user has typed? The size of the database of terms Google will search? What?

Chris Mattern

Re:Cool! Just like form AutoComplete

[TheRaven64]

Of course, if you're trying to decide between two search algorithms using the same dataset and one algorithm is O(n log n) and the other is O(n^2) then the Big-Oh comparison actually means something.

Not always. Big-Oh only means the worst case. Quicksort is O(n^2), but the worst case is so rare that it usually performs better than many O(n log n) algorithms.

Re:Cool! Just like form AutoComplete

[JabberWokky]

If it makes you feel any better about Slashdot, there are plenty of people who knew exactly what you're asking and haven't responded because they know enough to know that they don't know the answer. Thus you're only getting responses from people who didn't understand the question.

I'd guess that n will vary between now and when they release as they grow their database.

Interestingly, they seem to clamp down on search phrases that are synonyms and start with the same beginning. For instance, the search for "Rocky Horror" is more common than "Rocky Horror Picture Show", but only the latter is listed. In this case, for reasons that are specific to the search, using RHPS over Rocky Horror can cause problems as it eliminates "Rocky Horror Show", which is the stage production, and often swapped by the public for RHPS.

--
Evan

Re:Cool! Just like form AutoComplete

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, that is, as they say, trivially obvious.

However, it is not trivially obvious what "n" is counting is this case. For instance, I can give you an O(1) algorithm for a search of an arbitrarily large database, as long as I'm measuring complexity by w.r.t. "the number of servers used in processing the query." Adding servers will not increase the processing time, therefore there is a constant upper bound (with respect to the number of servers being used), therefore it is a constant time (or less) algorithm.

This is a stupid and intentionally misleading example, but it should show that O(f(n)) can be an utter lie if you don't know what n is. Oranges? Turtles? Pigeons? WTF?

Re:Cool! Just like form AutoComplete

[nacturation]

In your rush to point out you know more than the above poster, did you stop to consider that he might not be asking about the notation? I don't understand what n is supposed to be either. Do you? If you do, why don't you clue us in, instead of your smug arrogance. In case you are still missing it, I do know how O(n) notation works. So does the poster above.

Big O notation refers to the efficiency of the algorithm. If you really understand the notation, you wouldn't be asking what 'n' means. The original post stated that the "Did you mean..." algorithm is O(n) efficient. If it stated that the algorithm is O(1) efficient, would you ask what the 1 represents?

Re:Cool! Just like form AutoComplete

[pigscanfly.ca]

You seem to be abusing big O notation a bit my friend.
You cant say O(n) best case , since it O(n) is a bounding above by a function. What your looking to say is that the algorithm is O(n^2) and Omega(n)

Re:Cool! Just like form AutoComplete

[BorgCopyeditor]

Instant access to any piece of human knowledge

I'm no Luddite, but might it not be significantly more exact to add the qualification "that can be found on the Internet"?

Re:Cool! Just like form AutoComplete

[downbad]

i find it amusing that this is faster than Mozilla's autocomplete on my system.

Re:Cool! Just like form AutoComplete

[Have Blue]

Or better, "can be found on the Internet in text form". The image search is nowhere near as comprehensive or accurate, and not even Google is attempting sound or video search yet.

Re:Cool! Just like form AutoComplete

[Herbmaster]

Not always. Big-Oh only means the worst case. Quicksort is O(n^2), but the worst case is so rare that it usually performs better than many O(n log n) algorithms.

Furthermore, Big-Oh only means an upper limit on the worst case. Quicksort is O(n^4), and O(n^5), and O(n^6). It also happens to be O(n^2), which is a much more useful statement. For some reason people like to talk about Big-Oh even if they really mean Big-Theta.

Try this:

[elid]

Type in g. Then type o. Then type o again. And again. Keep typing o's... Look what happens :-)

Re:Try this:

[darth_MALL]

Try typing "mi". (saw this in an article)
Top 4 results:
Microsoft
miniclip
Michael Moore
miserable failure

Re:Try this:

[kzinti]

So why is it that goooooooooooooooogle, with 16 o's, has over 23000 hits, while strings with one more or one fewer o have only hundreds of hits?

gooooooooooooooogle 618
goooooooooooooooogle 23,300
gooooooooooooooooogle 198

I thought maybe it was a power-of-two thing, but other such disparities happen at non 2^n transitions. Interesting.

Re:Try this:

[damgx]

Hum, the scary part is a search like this: goooooogle

Gives:
Did you mean: goooooooogle

Yes, that is it. Google is spelled with 8 O's silly me.

Re:Try this:

[Underholdning]

Three words: Ads by goooooooooooooooogle

Great..

[BossMC]

[ Niagra Falls ]
[Google Search] [I'm Feeling Lucky]

Did you mean viagra?

Re:Great..

[APDent]

Except, if you actually watch the drop-down list as you're typing, once you've typed "nia", it's already suggesting "niagara falls" with the correct spelling and 3,090,000 results. True, "niagra falls" (incorrectly spelled) is also in the list, but since it only has 129,000 results, it's probably clear which one you're actually looking for if you're not trying to make a joke about Viagra.

This is pretty amazing, really.

Crashes Konqeuror?

[Shaman]

Not mine. Worked like a charm. Version 3.3.2 on Gentoo Linux 64bit

Re:Crashes Konqeuror?

[Espectr0]

Also, safari works fine

Is it any coincidence

[Moth7]

That when you enter "P", the first suggestion is "Paris Hilton"? I guess this just proves that porn really does drive every new technology ;-)

Re:Is it any coincidence

[IdleTime]

No, it just means that you are a porn freak!

Their suggestions is ofcourse based on earlier interests shown from your ip. So when you type capital P, google knows that you are not intereste in Paris, France but Paris Hilton and no, it's not a hotel!

Re:Is it any coincidence

[SlayerofGods]

did it ever occure to you that it is possible that she has so many results there because she is a beautiful, clever, smart, and funny girl?

Nope

Re:Is it any coincidence

[Haydn Fenton]

Haha. What's also cool is 'f' gives 'Firefox' as the first suggestion, it must be making a big impact.

Re:Is it any coincidence

[oiarbovnb]

amazon best buy cnn dictionary ebay firefox games hotmail ikea jokes kazaa lyrics mapquest news online dictionary paris hilton quotes recipes spybot tara reid (who is that?) ups verizon weather xbox yahoo zipcodes

Re:Is it any coincidence

[kzinti]

There are some other interesting first-suggestions in the alphabet: h suggests "hotmail", and x suggests "x-box" (not, as I was expecting, a porn term). d suggests "dictionary", and o suggests "online dictionary". Most surprising: f suggests "firefox", where the top hit is mozilla.org.

Re:Is it any coincidence

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a rather sad commentary on the state of human affairs, if yuo ask me.

... says the guy with the "penile percentile" signature ...

Re:Is it any coincidence

[rizawbone]

tara reid (who is that?)

Usually people would reply to this qustion by saying 'google it'. The fact you were one click away from knowing everything about Tara Reid, imdb listing to botched boob job photos, puts you into a new class of laziness that can probably be detected from space.

Congrats.

Suggest failed

[SunPin]

I typed "tits" and it drew a blank.

Re:Suggest failed

[pete-classic]

Is English your second language? We, confusingly enough, put adjectives before the nouns they refer to.

For example, the first suggestion for "pendulous" is "breasts."

-Peter

All I want is SEX....

[ilikeitraw]

... and I get SEARS !? SEARS is not sexy. It is probably the extreme opposite.
Google needs to open there eyes and know that some people (mostly male I assume) need extremely quick "relevant" results when they are out of passwords, and ... eh... need extremely "quick" results.

Advertising potential

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder how long it will take before companies are able to pay for their 'suggestions' to show up at the top of the list.

No good...

[Omicron32]

Hmmm....

p -> paris hilton
po -> poems
por -> porsche

I'd say it's pretty obvious what I intend to search for. This thing is utterly useless. (Although, in it's favour, I must say the Paris Hilton first link was pretty good.) :)

Notes

[parmadil]

* It works on KHTML-based Safari, so it the crash must be a Konq-specific problem.

* It ignores, um, non-work-safe input.

* It works fine on moderately esoteric topics -- I started typing n-s-a-r and it found NSArray, NSArrayController, NSArchiver, etc.

How is it so FAST!?

[topham]

It is blazingly fast. I expected it to be slowwwww.
Can somebody outline how it works?

Re:How is it so FAST!?

[mbyte]

hmm, i think it loads the search results in the background. When i type in some text and look at my squid logs i see several of the following queries:

http://www.google.com/complete/search?

So, basicly they use some javascript to handle on keypress event, send the data to google and back, and display them .. but i'm also amazed how fast it is ! (one point can be that the search pages result about 500-1000 bytes ..)

Re:How is it so FAST!?

[loconet]

Everytime you type a letter, it requests a special modified version of the search tool which only returns the necessary javascript data.

check itout

Impressive

Re:How is it so FAST!?

[nacturation]

Type livesearch into the box and hit I'm feeling lucky. You'll then find the details of what I'm positive inspired this. Essentially, as you type it passes data via an XMLHttpRequest control to the server which then returns a list of the top 10 elements and the page gets updated.

google whacks

[manganese4]

Well it definitely makes it easier to look for google whacks

Privacy?

[Frisky070802]

I'm surprised no one has commented on privacy yet. It looks to me like it uses past queries to suggest future ones, because as soon as I zoomed in on an unusual name, it offered a couple of bizarre queries that could only have been typos (one was a two-word query, so it wasn't simply every word indexed -- unless they know every pair of words that quickly?).

I don't mind Google knowing what I ask, but I'm not sure I want the world to see them.

Re:Privacy?

[tyler_larson]

I'm surprised no one has commented on privacy yet.

You wouldn't have been so surprised if you had done what the rest of use did and READ THE FAQ!

http://labs.google.com/suggest/faq.html

You would have found it if you had clicked the "Learn More" link prominantly displayed on the page.

Your own previous searches are not used at all in determining results. The results you see are exactly the same results everyone else will see. You're sending the same information to Google that you send in a normal search (i.e. your query). Google is sending the same information back to you that they normally send (the results). The only things that's different is that they send each of the little pieces of it as you type them.

No one has commented on privacy yet because privacy is irrelevant. No one has commented on terrorism yet either, does that surprise you?

I can see it now

[Timesprout]

"It looks like you are searching for lesbian porn, would you like some help with that?"

"It looks like you are searching for lesbian porn again, do you remember what I showed you last time?"

"I know, I know, Lesbian porn,and can you rate these pages so I can update my page index?"

"Hello freak, try these"

The ABCs of Google Complete

[Hatta]

A is for Amazon
B is for Best Buy
C is for CNN
D is for Dictionary
E is for Ebay
F is for Firefox (yay!)
G is for Games
H is for Hotmail
I is for Ikea
J is for Jokes
K is for Kazaa
L is for Lyrics
M is for Mapquest
N is for News
O is for Online dictionary
P is for Paris Hilton (wtf?!)
Q is for Quotes
R is for Recipes
S is for Spybot
T is for Tara Reid
U is for Ups
V is for Verizon
W is for Weather
X is for Xbox
Y is for Yahoo
Z is for Zip Codes

Re:The ABCs of Google Complete

[dwvanstone]

Just to add to the list:

1 is for 1
2 is for 2004 election
3 is for 3m
4 is for 411
5 is for 50 cent
6 is for 60 minutes
7 is for 7th heaven
8 is for 89.com (as bad as Paris Hilton!!)
9 is for 911

Re:The ABCs of Google Complete

[Zorilla]

Quick! Somebody do Kanji now!

Re:The ABCs of Google Complete

[Anonymous Coward]

Explain THIS though:
x : xbox
xx: xxl
xxx:

p: paris hilton
po: poems
por: porsche
porn:

s: spybot
se: sears
sex:

Somehow, I don't think these are based purely on search requests :)

Re:The ABCs of Google Complete

[witcomb]

That is based on alphabetics ordering, I think it would make more sense to sort based on rating. That has a little more significance when it comes to google.

A is amazon
B is for BBC
C is for cars
D is for Dell
E is for Ebay
G is for games
H is for http
I is for index
J is for jobs
K is for kelkoo
L is for love
M is for music
N is for news
O is for online games
P is for pubmed
Q is for quotes
R is for ringtones
S is for s (that is weird)
T is for target
U is for UPS
V is for virgin
W is for weather
X is for xbox
Y is for Yahoo
Z is for zdnet

Re:The ABCs of Google Complete

[kzinti]

That is based on alphabetics ordering, I think it would make more sense to sort based on rating.

Google is ranking these suggestions so that the ones you're most likely to search for are higher. So even though 's' has more hits than 'spybot', Google thinks you're more likely to search for 'spybot'. That makes sense - the terms people search for most often are not necessarily the pages with the most search results (or the highest Pagerank).

Re:The ABCs of Google Complete

[geekguy]

They seem to have linked it all under pr0n, that brings up lots of choices.

Re:The ABCs of Google Complete

[h4ter]

'porn' isn't there, but 'pr0n' is.

I wonder...

[Lizard_King]

... how they prioritize the suggestions in the list. It's definitely not by the number of results per suggestion. Are there any revenue opportunities here for GOOG?

Google suggests wrong spelling as well

[witcomb]

I figured I would look up mountain biking. However, in my quick typing I entered mountian instead and it continued and accepted that. It gave me many valid searches, which I probably wouldn't have found if I entered the search string properly. Of course, it did indicate that mountain was spelled incorrectly as normal.

I figured this could be a useful feature as you probably don't make an effort to misspell your entries, yet many items on the web could have useful information with the misspelled word. So, I entered mount to see the completion, and no mountian, just correctly spelled words.

I guess we'll just have to continue to misspell everything.

Browser Wars

[alva_edison]

Before more people complain that their browser doesn't work, here's [labs.google.com]what google specifies as the browser requirements.

Didn't Microsdoft patent this?

[jaal]

I remember long back, one thread on slashdot where it was discussed how microsoft patented the idea of showing the options as the user types in. I am not sure though.

What Google needs is Lexis-Nexis and Journal tabs

[F34nor]

What Google really needs is a for pay LexisNexis tab so you can find real information from real sources in real time. That and a tab that indexes full text medical and science journals. Those damn journals! I love em but I don't have hundreds of dollars a year for each Psych. journal I want to read and hate going to libraries if I just want to see what's shaking in the world of science. With full text periodicals and full test journal search Google would become a singularity of information.

Hmm. Does interfere with FireFox autocomplete

[DollyTheSheep]

I have a list of queries, which I repeat every day or week or so. FireFox has now gathered them in its own form autocomplete. Now google interferes that with queries, I don't want to submit.

Not like this?

[oliverthered]

Konq 3.3.2.
Try using it for a while and you'll get.

Using host libthread_db library "/lib/libthread_db.so.1".
[KCrash handler]
#7 0x409cfe74 in av_ () from /usr/kde/3.3/lib/libkdecore.so.4
#8 0x41b6df56 in KJS::XMLHttpRequest::abort ()
from /usr/kde/3.3/lib/libkhtml.so.4
#9 0x41b6f333 in KJS::XMLHttpRequestProtoFunc::tryCall ()
from /usr/kde/3.3/lib/libkhtml.so.4
#10 0x41aeef77 in KJS::DOMFunction::call () from /usr/kde/3.3/lib/libkhtml.so.4
#11 0x41c7332b in KJS::Object::call () from /usr/kde/3.3/lib/libkjs.so.1
#12 0x41c3b09d in KJS::FunctionCallNode::evaluate ()
from /usr/kde/3.3/lib/libkjs.so.1
#13 0x41c3f54a in KJS::ExprStatementNode::execute ()
from /usr/kde/3.3/lib/libkjs.so.1
#14 0x41c45c16 in KJS::SourceElementsNode::execute ()
from /usr/kde/3.3/lib/libkjs.so.1
#15 0x41c3f36d in KJS::BlockNode::execute () from /usr/kde/3.3/lib/libkjs.so.1
#16 0x41c3f8ce in KJS::IfNode::execute () from /usr/kde/3.3/lib/libkjs.so.1
#17 0x41c45c16 in KJS::SourceElementsNode::execute ()
from /usr/kde/3.3/lib/libkjs.so.1
#18 0x41c3f36d in KJS::BlockNode::execute () from /usr/kde/3.3/lib/libkjs.so.1
#19 0x41c45143 in KJS::FunctionBodyNode::execute ()
from /usr/kde/3.3/lib/libkjs.so.1
#20 0x41c6de0c in KJS::DeclaredFunctionImp::execute ()
from /usr/kde/3.3/lib/libkjs.so.1
#21 0x41c6d1bc in KJS::FunctionImp::call () from /usr/kde/3.3/lib/libkjs.so.1
#22 0x41c7332b in KJS::Object::call () from /usr/kde/3.3/lib/libkjs.so.1
#23 0x41c3b09d in KJS::FunctionCallNode::evaluate ()
from /usr/kde/3.3/lib/libkjs.so.1
#24 0x41c3f54a in KJS::ExprStatementNode::execute ()
from /usr/kde/3.3/lib/libkjs.so.1
#25 0x41c45c16 in KJS::SourceElementsNode::execute ()
from /usr/kde/3.3/lib/libkjs.so.1
#26 0x41c3f36d in KJS::BlockNode::execute () from /usr/kde/3.3/lib/libkjs.so.1
#27 0x41c3f8ce in KJS::IfNode::execute () from /usr/kde/3.3/lib/libkjs.so.1
#28 0x41c45c8c in KJS::SourceElementsNode::execute ()
from /usr/kde/3.3/lib/libkjs.so.1
#29 0x41c3f36d in KJS::BlockNode::execute () from /usr/kde/3.3/lib/libkjs.so.1
#30 0x41c3f8aa in KJS::IfNode::execute () from /usr/kde/3.3/lib/libkjs.so.1
#31 0x41c45c8c in KJS::SourceElementsNode::execute ()
from /usr/kde/3.3/lib/libkjs.so.1
#32 0x41c3f36d in KJS::BlockNode::execute () from /usr/kde/3.3/lib/libkjs.so.1
#33 0x41c3f8ce in KJS::IfNode::execute () from /usr/kde/3.3/lib/libkjs.so.1
#34 0x41c45c16 in KJS::SourceElementsNode::execute ()
from /usr/kde/3.3/lib/libkjs.so.1
#35 0x41c3f36d in KJS::BlockNode::execute () from /usr/kde/3.3/lib/libkjs.so.1
#36 0x41c3f8ce in KJS::IfNode::execute () from /usr/kde/3.3/lib/libkjs.so.1
#37 0x41c45c16 in KJS::SourceElementsNode::execute ()
from /usr/kde/3.3/lib/libkjs.so.1
#38 0x41c3f36d in KJS::BlockNode::execute () from /usr/kde/3.3/lib/libkjs.so.1
#39 0x41c45143 in KJS::FunctionBodyNode::execute ()
from /usr/kde/3.3/lib/libkjs.so.1
#40 0x41c6de0c in KJS::DeclaredFunctionImp::execute ()
from /usr/kde/3.3/lib/libkjs.so.1
#41 0x41c6d1bc in KJS::FunctionImp::call () from /usr/kde/3.3/lib/libkjs.so.1
#42 0x41c7332b in KJS::Object::call () from /usr/kde/3.3/lib/libkjs.so.1
#43 0x41c3b09d in KJS::FunctionCallNode::evaluate ()
from /usr/kde/3.3/lib/libkjs.so.1
#44 0x41c3f54a in

Re:Wow

[Freexe]

Its javascript, using the XMLHTTP object to communicate with the server directly

You can see it http://www.google.com/ac.js cant say i understand it, Gmail using the same thing but way more advanced.

Interesting Political Uses

[ravenspear]

This was mentioned in another story last night but I thought it was funny.

If you go to the page and type "George Bush is a" you get some interesting suggestions. ;)

Re:Interesting Political Uses

[Skeezix]

Also works for "Kerry is a" and "michael moore is a"

Re:What Google needs is Lexis-Nexis and Journal ta

[brokenwndw]

You mean like scholar.google.com? Or something more where you could pay to get the full text? I definitely wish I could click on Google Scholar's results and get the full text right there with a uniform interface and without having to log in or pay other people.

Re:The ABCs of Google Complete - The 123s

[highway40]

0 is for 02
1 is for 1
2 is for 2004 Election
3 is for 3m
4 is for 411
5 is for 50 cent
6 is for 60 minutes
7 is for 7th heaven
8 is for 89.com
9 is for 911

Advertising potential?

[gavint]

Looks nice, but what happens when you type "the"?

"the incredibles"

Is anyone else seeing the advertising possibilities?

Implementation details

[JavaRob]

The source for the page is quite simple; most of the work happens in a condensed JavaScript library. Not easy reading (note the word "condensed" above, meaning function and variable names are 1 or 2 chars, and all extra whitespace was removed...), but it's actually pretty straightforward.

It disables your browser's autocomplete on that textfield (for obvious reasons). Then it basically just defines a hidden div for that auto-complete dropdown (variations on this depending on browser... frickin' incompatibilities).

Each time you type a character, it populates that div body with the results of a quick, tiny query back to Google. It's NOT running the search for you; it's hitting (I assume) a simple, probably totally in-memory list of the most popular searches and number of results. That's how it can be so quick a response -- the lookup on their end is super-minimal, and the data to be transferred is probably less than 1k each time.

Cool. Nice concept, nice execution. And one of those nice "only obvious in hindsight" additions.

Even cooler -- it looks like (from the js file) they are supporting multiple languages here, not just English. Anyone using want to test this out for me? I think even Chinese is supported (or maybe that's the one that isn't.. I don't want to take the time to parse this properly).

Re:Implementation details

[K-Man]

Here's the url it uses to populate the drop-down:

http://www.google.com/complete/search?hl=en&js=tru e&qu=chicken.

You can substitute any string for "chicken", and hl is the language.

Re:Implementation details

[starrsoft]

No it doesn't support other languages... yet. Google Suggest FAQ:

When will you support other languages?
We're not sure yet. But we're always interested in expanding our products into more languages, and hope to be able to offer you such services soon!

Obfuscated Javascript

[jdludlow]

http://www.google.com/ac.js

The Javascript is ripped to shreds as far as readability goes, but buried in there somewhere is the key to making your own app based on this. If you were so inclined to piggy-back on top of this technology. Not that I'd advocate such things.

// Copyright 2004 and onwards Google Inc.

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Re:Obfuscated Javascript

[nacturation]

Why not grab a legal version from the LiveSearch wiki page, which is given away under the Apache license?

Re:Obfuscated Javascript

[Jugalator]

I don't think they obfuscated it to obfuscate it, but to save bandwidth with a minimum of cost in CPU time. Take 1 byte and multiply that with however many visitors per second they're getting ;-)

Re:What Google needs is Lexis-Nexis and Journal ta

[calibanDNS]

See Google Scholar for a service that might do just that one day. It was previously covered on Slashdot here.

Slash...

[fishbulb-]

5 letters into 'slashdot' --- here I am reading slash fanfiction. This is just diverting me from my original goal. I - ooh, Kirk & Spock?! brb...

Re:Google starts to suck

[diamondsw]

So they screwed up Groups. What does that have to do with Suggest, which looks like a classic "awesome! why didn't anyone else do it that way?" Google feature?

What is n?

[MasterVidBoi]

I'll try this myself: What does n represent in this case? The number of pages in google's database, the number of words or phrases in their database? The length of the search string?

I would really like to know where you came across this. Can point us to a discription of the algorithm?

Yippee! A new source of amusement!

[slcdb]

I got a real kick out of some of the suggestions.

my cat: ... hates you ... breath smells like cat food ... hates me ... is an alien

my girlfried:
(No suggestions, obviously Google is run by a pack of lonely nerds).

my boyfriend: ... is gay ... sucks ... cheated on me ... hates me ... dumped me
(Okay, make that an apparently gay pack of lonely nerds).

darth vader is: ... gay
(A delusional pack of gay nerds?)

Oh, the fun I'll have with this new toy when I'm bored at work.

Re:Yippee! A new source of amusement!

[Redshift]

This really ....

sucks (2,010,000)
works (19,000,000)

Proof that it's an upbeat world out there!

Re:Yippee! A new source of amusement!

[mldqj]

my girlfried:
(No suggestions, obviously Google is run by a pack of lonely nerds).

No, it's just because you misspelled girlfriend.

Re:Google starts to suck

[tesmako]

Take for instance Microsoft. Ten years ago it was the icon of geekhood, they made a really good compiler, assembler and whatnot.

What? Are you trying to rewrite history in some way? I would say that the acceptance of Microsoft products have never really been higher than it is today. All OS's they had before 2k were disgraces. XP is popular and far from the resource hog slashdotters like to pretend that it is (have a look at any other desktop environment), in fact the system requirement leap between 2k and XP was far smaller than many jumps before when factoring in the progress of hardware. I don't see anything wrong with the current development tools that Microsoft has either (in fact, they too sure seem to be better today than they have ever before been).

Really, the last five years of Microsoft products have done a lot to convince me that MS knows what they are doing, Linux seems further from being able to conquer the desktop market today than it did in 1999.

No sex

[petteri_666]

Try searching with sex, porn etc. no results. It is in some safety mode or what?

Re:URL is same, with ?complete=1?

[Deag]

It does go back to the server, load the page and kill your internet - it will no longer work.

Re:Google starts to suck

[That's Unpossible!]

Yes, Google is testing one of the coolest features I've ever seen on a website...

They sure are starting to suck.

Re:I call foul: CENSORSHIP

[recursiv]

I agree with your conclusion, but I just had to stop and point out that you don't condone one-handed sex searching. Hilarious!

Careful though, some pervs our there might think you were talking about wanking, jagging, or otherwise masturbating. (Horrors!) They might not get your true message about amputees.

I keed, I keed. I was just very amused with puritanical way you approached the subject, and that you went the extra step not to condone it.

Re:URL is same, with ?complete=1?

[Wiseleo]

In the IE version, here is the function (for those curious how it all works, download www.google.com/ac.js)

function jb(){var A=null;
try{A=new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP")}catch(e){try{A=new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP")}catch(oc){A=nul l}}if(!A&&typeof XMLHttpRequest!="undefined"){A=new XMLHttpRequest()}return A}

This function is obviously copyright google, inc., but being presented here for educational purposes only.

In a later report.....

[ARRRLovin]

...Google suggestion is renamed to "Skynet" by the company that acquired Google, Cyberdyne systems. Skynet is said to be fully operational. Soon it will become "aware".

Try this:

[AEton]

Type in g. Then type o. Then type a. Then type t. Aiyeee! I just wanted goat feeding instructions!

Re:URL is same, with ?complete=1?

[samrolken]

This is the same mechanism by which the Gmail application receives its data. It seems like Google has become a big fan of this XMLHTTP object and its Mozilla cousin. It's a great way to give web applications access to live data without requiring a page refresh.

Re:Why they probably block searches containing "se

[5n3ak3rp1mp]

I just posted that from work. I'm such an idiot

One more thing..

[Egorn]

Ohh! One more thing I just found, check it:

http://www.google.com/complete/search?hl=en&js=tru e&qu=natalie%20portman - The results in a nice pretty array!