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Google Trials A9 Style Image Search

Posted by samzenpus on from the be-careful-what-you-search-for dept.

Grugnog writes "Google has started including images from it's image search on the main search page. This is similar to Amazon's A9 search engine. With Google kicking off Google Print (A9's other specialty) could A9 become redundant?"

19 of 221 comments (clear)

  1. Ummm... by keeleysam · · Score: 2, Interesting

    http://www.google.com/search?complete=1&hl=en&q=tr aktor&btnG=Google+Search
    ummm... i'm not getting pictures....

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    Nothing for you to see here, Please move along.
  2. Kinda.. by krin · · Score: 3, Interesting

    throws the whole feel of Google off. The less images the better.

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    There is no spork.
  3. NSFW by kdark1701 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So what if pornographic images pop up? Say I search for my friend's name, and then there's porn thumbnails across the screen. Not good for those of us who use google in public.

    1. Re:NSFW by bigberk · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Reminds me when I was in junior high (and the Internet was young), we all started trying www.dot-com's of each others' names. The girls' names usually led to porn sites. Come to think of it, that must be have been kind of hurtful when the girls see how they are just seen as sex objects

    2. Re:NSFW by jesser · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You assume that SafeSearch successfully blocks all porn.

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      The shareholder is always right.
  4. elaborate scam? by gl4ss · · Score: 4, Interesting

    *****************
    domain: GRUGNOG.COM
    owner-address: Owen Barton
    owner-address: 14 Parc Derwen
    owner-address: Glan Conwy
    owner-address: LL28 5BZ
    owner-address: Colwyn Bay
    owner-address: United Kingdom
    *****************

    when you use normal google there's no pics. then there's no explanation wtf is this grugnog.com

    and there's no pics on normal google... which is good. pics suck most of the time when you're looking for information in TEXT.

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    world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    1. Re:elaborate scam? by gl4ss · · Score: 4, Interesting

      flamebait? wtf? how is it flamebait pointing out that the SITE IS NOT GOOGLES? it's all public information anyways.

      the site might have worked for 10 secs, that i could admit. but it sure as hell has nothing to do with official google. such a search frontend, like a9, that included images as well would be pretty easy to implement with googleapi.

      so at best some guy coded his 'own' crappy version of a9, at worst he just hand made the html for whatever reason, maybe he's trying to score on the googleads there. ....but one thing is 99.99% sure: THE FUCKING NEWS POST IS FRAUDALENT.

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      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    2. Re:elaborate scam? by gl4ss · · Score: 2, Interesting

      you know, then he should have told us so that we would have known - and even then the story would have been unverifiable, he could have just as well said that google creates a mindmap out of every search.

      as now it only looks like he took some html and edited in pictures - with no explanations whatsoever.

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      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  5. More info by grugnog · · Score: 5, Interesting
    For what it's worth, the magic word is trials. Google doesn't release a new feature to everyone at once - specific subnets will see the feature first. Even I only see this with a search for 'traktor' - other searches just look the same.

    Maybe others in the /. herd can verify if they get this?

    ...I am redirecting to mirrordot to avoid server meltdown :)

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    Grugnog
  6. This is bogus by Xoo · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Not to repeat what everyone else is saying, but this is definately bogus.

    Grugnog used the following URL to access the page in the first pic of his search for "traktor":

    http://www.google.com/search?complete=1&hl=en&lr=& safe=off&c2coff=1&q=traktor&btnG=Search

    As you can see it shows the typical google search results page with the TEXT ads at top. After subsequent refreshes of my browser, I got the same thing.

    I browsed around Google Suggest, even the Advanced Options, and got zilch. So please, include a working demo URL next time... and lastly, why would this make a FPP if it's not even verifiable?! Lol, :-)

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    Karma police, arrest this man, he talks in maths....
    1. Re:This is bogus by Vacindak · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Actually, no this is not bogus, mod parent down. A couple of days ago, before this story hit, I happened to notice this feature when I did a google search for "loneliness" since I couldn't remember how to spell it. Got three images up at the top of the page, exactly like what the article showed. Subsequent attempts to get those results met with failure. So this is just a case of Google rolling things out to specific subnets. Not a hoax guys.

  7. Re:How about previews of the web pages? by Roguelazer · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Try the GooglePreview extension for Firefox.

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    My Systems
  8. Re:FAKE! FAKE! FAKE! by LocoSpitz · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Not necessarily fake. Here's why you wouldn't link to it: As noted by numerous posters in this thread, and also on a Slashdot FPP just days ago, Google oftentimes rolls out features only to specific subnets. If you're not in that subnet, you don't get to see the feature.

    Since the majority of people are unable to see this new feature, it only makes sense to offer a screenshot.

    Everyone who thinks this is an elaborate hoax, or that the mirror was intended to be seen as an actual Google.com page, is reading waaaay too much into this.

  9. A9 has cool stuff in the works.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    a friend works there... cool stuff to come, that google doesn't offer (i dont think anyone does, yet)

    should be up in a month or two?

  10. Re:dumb question by l3v1 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You mean Google doing web search, A9 using Google's web and image search results to enhance (their word) the results, now Google doing search which you/they/whatever say it's a copy of A9's. Now, stop that, I'm spinning. From the beginning A9 was a results ripoff with it's own interface. If they have something really worth using, that should do us (users) just good and fine, a little competitiveness can never hurt (if you leave MS out of it, that is :P ).

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    I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
  11. A friend saw this by Captain+Nitpick · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I was on IRC back on January 6, and a friend of mine got some images at the top of a particular Google search. Nobody else on the channel could reproduce it, and it wasn't appearing for him on any other search.

    His screenshot was identically formatted to these.

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    But then again, I could be wrong.
  12. Ever heard of A B testing? by graiz · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Google like many other web companies probably does some amount of A B testing. This is a way to get feedback and gauge response from a feature by releasing it to a small subset of the total population. The results of one group A are then compared to the total population B.

    As an example Amazon uses A B testing all the time with many A B tests happening every day. They track to see if small changes that they make have any impact in the percentage of their users who purchase products.

    It's very likely that Google does similar tests to see what minor changes can be made to improve accuracy of results and possibly increase click-through in advertisements. This particular test could explore if showing images increases the average number of searches or increases awareness of the google image tool.

  13. Re:A9 Seems Redundant Already by Jugalator · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Something I liked with A9 was an easily accessible site info page with a site review and even rating, along with other misc. info like page ranking (from Amazon.com? Alexa?) The link was right next to the search result, like "show cached" is in Google.

    What would be nice is if Google had something like this that wasn't tied into Amazon.com like that, and gave graphs for PageRank history instead of whatever ranking technology they had used.

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    Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
  14. Re:FAKE! FAKE! FAKE! by dotcher · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Perhaps because if it breaks, only a smaller proportion of users are affected?

    Remember the latest Google site redesign - I got to see it around a month and a half earlier than its general release, if I visited Google from Uni.

    Whilst there's no evidence that's what they're doing this time, there's no evidence to the contrary either. I'll take a look when I get to Uni - if they're using the same subnets as last time, I'll probably see it.