Google Delivering Factual Answers

nam37 wrote in about a Macworld article which reads: "Google Inc. on Thursday began delivering factual answers for some queries at the top of its results page, to save users from having to navigate over to other sites and look for the information. For example, if a user enters the query 'Portugal population,' Google returns the answer -- 10.5 million -- along with a link to the Web page where the information came from, which in this case is the population page of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's Factbook. The query 'who is Jane Fonda?' triggers the answer '... is an Academy Award winning American actress, model, writer, producer, activist and philanthropist' and provides the link to the Wikipedia online encyclopedia's entry for the actress. A small percentage of queries currently trigger these factual answers, but the service, called Google Q&A, is in its early stages, said Peter Norvig, Google's director of search quality."

Comments

AFP vs Google News

[fembots]

This is no doubt a good service for users, but will it attract complaints from site owners like AFP?

Personally I would rather get the answer without going into a site and read through things to find it, and if I want to, I can click on the link and find out more from the site. However the content providers will certainly want you to come to their sites as soon as possible, look around and maybe explore other sections?

Re:AFP vs Google News

[Anonymous Coward]

it probably works quite similarly to mit's START natural language processor. reading mostly creative commons sites like wikipedia.

Re:AFP vs Google News

[dingfelder]

how can they determine facts?

If a user asks: who is George Bush for example, is the right answer:

A. The current president, (blah blah, blah)
or
B. A Moron who (blah, blah, blah)

The point being that the "facts" are sometimes in the eye of the beholder.
Case in point, the CIA may state a different population than the country itself believes.

Re:AFP vs Google News

[j.blechert]

erm, actually it -is- a fact that he is the current president of the USA, but it's purely subjective that he's a moron.

Re:AFP vs Google News

[xstonedogx]

That's an interesting question. I think most content providers will be content to share their content with Google in exchange for being listed at the very top of the results. On the other hand, some content providers aren't the original source of the information. Instead they make the information easier to access. In that regard they might consider Google to be a competitor.

Re:AFP vs Google News

[malsdavis]

I don't get it, it works on www.google.com but not on the international sites.

Hope they add this feature to these sites soon though.

Re:AFP vs Google News

[k_187]

Yes, I believe that is the grandparent's point. How is google supposed to survey the upteen billion pages, and decide what is subjective and what are the facts?

Re:AFP vs Google News

[magarity]

How is google supposed to survey the upteen billion pages, and decide what is subjective and what are the facts?

Well, opinions are statements about your state of mind while facts are statements about the world. Calling someone a moron is an opinion because it reflects your state of mind regarding that person and calling someone the holder of the office of president is a fact about the world. So you'd need a lexicon of opinion oriented words and then entries could be parsed for loaded language like "moron" in the "who is" category for example.

Re:AFP vs Google News

[dingfelder]

while some "facts" are genererally agreed upon (such as that red and yellow = orange) others may be considered fact by many, but may actually be outright lies.

For example, some claim that Al Gore said he invented the internet.

Others claim that the story is conservative marketing, and that he did NOT claim to have invented it.

Depending upon which side you believe, the "fact" is either true or not true.

What is the prevent Google from returning "Al Gore" for searches of "who invented the internet?"

And what about religion? Faith makes many things seem "fact" that non-believers think is bunk.

I could easily see either of these examples existing without any "keywords" that you could filter on.

The problem is that, while people do have "opinions" about things (which doesnt make them a truth), if they publish that untruth, it BECOMES the truth for other people (who do not take the time to validate the truth.)

Re:AFP vs Google News

[logicnazi]

I wasn't going to post but this is just so wrong I had to respond.

First of all opinions can perfectly well be statements about the external world. One can certainly have the opinion that GW Bush will visit china despite clearly being about the external world. In fact in a strict sense all beliefs are opinions even very sure ones like 'President Lincoln is dead.'

Also in a strict sense facts are actually those things out in the world which make our beliefs true or false. Of course nothing prevents there from being facts about state of mind. The fact that John Nash had skizophrenia or The fact that some burn victim is in severe pain are perfectly good facts.

Colloquially of course fact is used in contrast with mere opinion. Fact in this sense is just used to emphasis factual backing or strong evidence which supports the position in question while opinion represents something which is just believed on a whim or without evidentiary support. Once again this has nothing to do with a dichotomy between states of the world and states of mind.

In this case calling him a moron was a mere opinion because he had very little evidence to support the idea that this man is a moron. On the other hand if he had administered him an extensive battery of tests and determined be had extremely low IQ the same belief might have been 'factual'.

Also if anyone had bothered to read the damn article you would have seen that google only takes definitions from a few trusted sites. Though if some of those are still wikipedia this could cause some problems.

Re:AFP vs Google News

[Red Alastor]

The more the page it is from is popular, the more likely it is the answer you want. Conveniently, PageRank base it's ranking on popularity (expressed mostly in the number of pages that links to you). So the higher the page is in page, the higher the odds that it contains what you want.

All they have to do is do a normal search, scan from rank one and up until they can parse an answer out of the english any page. Then they display it.

The point here is to give you the right info quicker, not to judge what the truth is. And they give you the link so you can judge by yourself how reliable a the info is.

But that's just my guess.

Re:AFP vs Google News

[magarity]

Depending upon which side you believe, the "fact" is either true or not true.

Exactly. Fact: Al Gore invented the internet.
It's not a demonstrably *correct* fact, but as a statement about the world without a good/bad opinion qualifier, it's a fact.

This is the problem with *ALL* resources that are about facts. Which ones are correct and which are not? From the wild internet to Wikipedia to Jane's Publishing. Nevertheless, my point stands as a correct response to the original. The original did not cite the problem of correct vs incorrect facts; it addressed the problem of opinion vs fact and that's what I responded to. Where exactly did I ask for this rant about correct vs incorrect facts?

Re:AFP vs Google News

[magarity]

The original did not cite the problem of correct vs incorrect facts; it addressed the problem of opinion vs fact and that's what I responded to. Where exactly did I ask for this rant about correct vs incorrect facts?

And?

[DarkHelmet]

I know I'm just playing devil's advocate here... but...

People criticize Wikipedia for being something that gets information from online sources. At least Wikipedia has a fellowship of users to prevent abuse, or misinformation from being on a topic.

Yes, I know some of the answers will be coming from Wikipedia (And people wonder why google is supporting them). But what about the other sites?

Of course, there's a link to the site in question, but as is asked of Wikipedia all the time, what level of accountability is there that this information is correct?

Also, how does it determine which sites are authoritative in this manner? Is this relevance automated, or are Google employees entering in sites that they see as authoritative on the matter. For that matter, what is their criteria for deeming a site accurate?

Google may be cool, but most of its algorithms and technology are closed. We have no idea how accurate the information will end up being, and also, how corruptible.

After all, who trusts what the CIA tells us about anything? :)

Re:And?

[MrAnnoyanceToYou]

But, at the same time, they retrieve the rest of your search results. It's not like they tell you they've got the only answer, they just give you what they consider their best answer. Much like, say, a lucky button or something. Only non-optional.

Re:And?

[Tackhead]

> Of course, there's a link to the site in question, but as is asked of Wikipedia all the time, what level of accountability is there that this information is correct?

Shh! The first time someone asked Google that, the damn thing went into recursive mode and blew out three server clusters before the sysadmin team could shut it down!

Re:And?

[Anonymous Coward]

Google may be cool, but most of its algorithms and technology are closed. We have no idea how accurate the information will end up being, and also, how corruptible.

How do you trust information from Google?

The same way you trust ALL information you find on the Internet. YOU DON'T!

WELCOME TO THE INTERNET!

Re:And?

[np_bernstein]

Google may be cool, but most of its algorithms and technology are closed. We have no idea how accurate the information will end up being, and also, how corruptible.

After all, who trusts what the CIA tells us about anything? :)

Paranoia aside, the CIA world fact book in an amazing resource. It's created for US diplomats, congressmen, and government employees as well as the general american populace. It contains pretty acurate, up to date information about different countries in the world. Honestly, I'm guessing that the CIA doesn't really care enough to doctor the listed ratio of women to men under the age of 25 for peru.

Re:And?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, there's a link to the site in question, but as is asked of Wikipedia all the time, what level of accountability is there that this information is correct?

Usually from a free service, there is no accountability. If you need an answer to a question, and you need to hold someone accountable for that answer, there are a number of paid research organizations that are willing to find what you need for money.

Re:And?

[Vombatus]

Also, how does it determine which sites are authoritative in this manner? Is this relevance automated, or are Google employees entering in sites that they see as authoritative on the matter. For that matter, what is their criteria for deeming a site accurate?

Basic research skills

Do not trust one source of information - always corroborate it with another source.

If one website says that the population of Portugal is 10.5 Million and another one says 20.5 Million, then there is obviously an error somewhere. If the second one says 10.1 Million, then you could probably live with the difference.

Of course, how many 'average users' trust everything they read on the internet blindly and would never think to question the information?

Re:And?

[DoraLives]

what level of accountability is there that this information is correct?

In the end, very little actual accountability.

It's the web, after all.

They're working on it.

Re:And?

[RexRhino]

Then don't use Google. Google is not REPLACING any source of information, it is simply offering another information source. People are free to choose what and where to get information. Google is doing a great thing.

What might be disturbing, is if there are not enough alternative sources of information to Google. But that is not Google's responsibility, that is the responsibility of competing companies, organizations, services, user groups, etc..

Just like Wikipedia is great, it is just too bad there isn't also Alternapedia and Free-o-pedia and Encylotron to choose from.

Re:And?

[rk]

What was scary was I asked Google "Is there a God?" and it replied, "Yes. now there is a God."

Re:And?

[orkysoft]

Nah, the American version of Google uses only sites mentioned in the Bible as trustworthy to get its facts from.

Re:And?

[fmobus]

I disagree; this is not always the case nor an excuse.
Some (actually most of) free (as in beer) sources get money (in advertisement) from information they give to you. Therefore, it's a profit-oriented businness and they are supposed to make some effort to keep its accontability. Some sort of "moral responsability"
However, I agree that this is a de facto bussiness model:
1) Stuff any non-reliable info into a site;
2) Get popularity
3) ... (has something to do with ads)
4) Profit!

Re:And?

[xanadu-xtroot.com]

[...]what level of accountability is there that this information is correct?

I dunno. Why don't you find out yourself?

2. :-)

Re:And?

[davedx]

Also, how does it determine which sites are authoritative in this manner? I'd say it's 99% likely they'll go by PageRank. That's how they rank 'authority' for everything else - relevancy, accuracy, etc., in the end. Given 2 pages with the exact same content, the number of incoming backlinks (IBL's) will determine which site G. chooses - and the PR is a composite of IBL's + PR of pages they're on.

Re:And?

[Dhalka226]

Of course, how many 'average users' trust everything they read on the internet blindly and would never think to question the information?

Most. But they deserve what they get then.

Re:And?

[NitsujTPU]

Having read the PageRank paper, which is apparently the backbone of their search engine technology, I'd have to say that they openned at least part of their technology to peer review.

That said, as far as question answering is concerned. Question answering systems are an active area of Natural Language Processing research. If you are curious about them, you can easily get your hands on a paper or two on the topic by Googling "Question Answering Systems."

Re:And?

[SamSim]

We have no idea how accurate the information will end up being, and also, how corruptible.

*monocle falls out* Good heavens, man. Are you seriously suggesting that there might be information on the internet which is misleading, even wrong? Pshaw!

Re:And?

[SamSim]

Of course, how many 'average users' trust everything they read on the internet blindly and would never think to question the information?

Too many. Slightly off-topic, but this should be the FIRST thing people are told when they get on the internet, there should be warning signs. It's rule zero. Do believe everything you read on the internet. The more people who have this drilled into their heads before they touch a computer the better.

Re:And?

[Vombatus]

It's rule zero. Do believe everything you read on the internet

And rule 1 is Always proofread what you post? :)

Unfortunately, too many people follow the rule as cited by you

Re:And?

[Fortun L'Escrot]

i would add that on top of multiple sources, they should also be as dissimilar as possible. sometimes you can get two sources that are just regurgitating information they have gleaned from the same source.

Re:And?

[MrScience]

Wow... Imagine a beowulf of those. Probably turn out something like this...

Re:And?

[mr_walrus]

>Some (actually most of) free (as in beer) sources get money (in
>advertisement) from information they give to you. Therefore, it's a
>profit-oriented businness and they are supposed to make some effort
> to keep its accontability.

they are accountable to who pays.
you buy a service directly, you get accountability,
you use a "free" advertising-supported service, the advertisers
get accountability.

really not too difficult to comprehend is it?

Re:And?

[fmobus]

The kind of accountability I expect from an information/answers site is different than the expected by advertisers. Ad-guys wants to get people going to their site; I want to find reliable info there.

My point is that free services are responsible for accountability for BOTH parts (me and advertisers) because the final objective is not the advertisers, but general public. If they fail to find reliable info there, general public will visit less the service and thus, hit less ads.
Want to make a cash cow? Publish useful and reliable information, freely (as in beer) and load it with contextualized ads (I smell GoogleAdSense here?).
Of course, in real life, things are not that simple, but such analysis is trivial and left as an exercise for the reader.

Re:And?

[Feral Bueller]

Honestly, I'm guessing that the CIA doesn't really care enough to doctor the listed ratio of women to men under the age of 25 for peru.

Someone's going on vacation.

Re:And?

[Ersatz Chickenweed]

I realize the "Is there a god?" post was a joke, but I searched it on Google anyway just for a hoot, and I noticed something interesting...

If you search for "Is there a god?", Google informs you that it left the words "is" and "a" out of the search since they're so common. What's odd is that, if you just search for "there god?" (leaving out "is" and "a" like the search supposedly does), you get an _entirely_ different set of results.

What gives? It's obvious that Google actually IS processing those very common words and returning search results based on them despite claiming otherwise (since the exact phrases showed up in the respective searches, common words and all), but why would they go to the trouble of claiming that they're omitting search terms when they really aren't?

Maybe I'm just slow for not noticing this years ago, but I still find it intriguing.

Re:And?

[trawg]

Of course, there's a link to the site in question, but as is asked of Wikipedia all the time, what level of accountability is there that this information is correct?

The same level as everyone else that ever posts stuff on the Internet, I guess. If people are happy to read stuff on the Internet/watch it on TV/read it in the newspaper/hear it from a friend and then mentally flag that as "fact", well, we're screwed anyway.

Google have a pretty big reputation to protect as being the Front Page of the Internet for many people (myself included). If they bone this up, then they'll lose their reputation. The better they make the service, the more people can trust it (and personally, I'd rather people believing the first "fact" they read off Google than the first "fact" they saw on Fox News).

(I noticed this yesterday when doing a search for a publisher of a certain game - I confess, I did the lazy thing and just Believed Google (even though I didn't know what this new feature was or how it got there!) but it was so cool and easy that I just assumed it was correct. I suck!)

Re:And?

[hitchhacker]

sig as follows.

Re:And?

[FLEB]

Sounds to me like what you would say if your mouth was full.

(chomp-munch-chomp)
"So... mmf... Bill..."
(chomp-munch-gulp)
"Yuh?"
(crunch... chomp-munch-gulp)
"There god?"
(suck-chomp-munch)
"Ah'uh know."

Re:And?

[illusion_2K]

... or you could just go to Portugal's statisical office. From where their population data is availible with one click.

The point is that there are definitive sources of information on the internet for various subjects, as long as you're aware of them.

Re:And?

[Sebastian Jansson]

I think that what they are telling you is that they don't search their index for "is" and "a". That doesn't mean that it doesn't matter when they are sorting the results by relevance though, which usually give the same result, even though not necessarily. If you, for instance, would search for a term that only are used on a few pages which don't have the word "is" on them, you'd get the results anyway if you don't explicitly state that "is" should be included.

I'd guess that is one of those things that seam more important to the programmer than it actually is for the user.

Re:And?

[indigeek]

Google as of yet refuses to answer agnosists and atheists. So "Is there a god" brings up no answer.
But on the other hand, "Who is god" brings up "God: is one of many terms used to describe a perfect, supreme being, generally believed to be the ruler ..."
Faith apparently is a pre-requisite for realization of the supreme!!

Re:And?

[wackywendell]

My guess is that the reason for this is that google also searches for phrases. Therefore, the difference is that with "there god?" google is looking for "there," "god," and "there god" whereas with "is there a god" it is not looking for "there god," which would explain why "it there as god" returns mostly the same results as "is there a god?" (punctuation is irrelevant), although the ads are different and the text expands to fill that space. The results aren't exactly the same (although very close), because "it there as god" does not include a search for the phrase "is there a god" is not searched for.

Re:And?

[bayvult]

"... I'd say it's 99% likely ... "

In other words you're guessing.

PageRank(tm) has only ever been one of many factors that Google considered - according to Google, over a hundred other criteria are considered. Now that Google has been comprehensively gamed by SEOs - "auto-generated spam accounts for 30% of Google's results" - according to one SEO, PageRank(tm) is deployed for marketing purposes only.

Re:And?

[danila]

I had a prolonged discussion with some friends about when can you claim to know something. I asked a university professor "Is there any area, about which you can say you know?" He couldn't couldn't name anything, caught in the self-created trap. He believes that since you can't know anything 100%, you can't really claim to know something and there are only points of view, all of which are equially valid in some sense. I (not bound by such irrational beliefs) have clearly (but in a polite language) told him that he is a moron for thinking that way. :)

I see the same problem here. You don't need Wikipedia answers to be reliable in order for them to be useful. You don't live in a reliable world, where any mistake is fatal. You live in a world where most people don't really know what they are doing, where about half of Americans believes that Saddam blew up WTC and people used to walk the Earth at the same time that dinosaurs lived.

Heck, do you seriously think that if you needed to know the population of Portugal and some troll modified the Wikipedia page to say "5 million", your life would be utterly and inevitably destroyed? I can create an search engine that would answer 95% of all questions correctly by giving "WHO THE FUCK CARES!" as an answer. :D

The reliability and trust are way, way overrated.

Re:And?

[lolocaust]

Google does remove the simple words, but it doesn't search for "there God?".

Any word that is left out will cause Google to search for "* there * God/?" in your example, returning slighty different results.

Re:And?

[ricotest]

Google ranks results higher if the words are closer together. So it does its initial search for 'There God' but then looks for the phrase 'Is there a god?' when sorting them.

Re:And?

[wbeckler]

Instead of searching for "there god", try "* there * god". Google is tossing the words, but it is keeping place holders where they were.

Not quite.

[Chess_the_cat]

Try searching for "Who was the President of the United States in 1996" and you get Pat Choate. What a joke. Try it.

Re:Not quite.

[That's Unpossible!]

I did try it. When I read the sentence, it said, "Pat Choate was the 1996 Reform Party of the United States of America Vice President candidate."

It is not saying the person is the answer to your question, though I guess you might have to actually read what it says to discern that.

Re:Not quite.

[thundercatslair]

What?!?! He wasn't the United States President in 1996?

Re:Not quite.

[Cyberop5]

Who invented TV?.
But really, Googleblog introduced this today with a couple of good examples.

Re:Not quite.

[diqmay]

seems about right

Re:Not quite.

[aussie_a]

So was it correct or not?

Re:Not quite.

[adpowers]

[where is seattle?]
Location: Seattle, WA

Thanks Google :)

Re:Not quite.

[euphline]

Try this:
Who is George HW Bush?

You get:
Noelle Bush

Property: ... current president George W. Bush, and the granddaughter of former U.S. president George H.W. Bush.

Looks like they've still got a few bugs to work out.

-jbn

Google's new math: What is 1/0 ?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=1%2F0&btnG=Go ogle+SearchAnswer?

Re:Google's new math: What is 1/0 ?

[Omniscientist]

Do you dare question the Google calculator?

Re:Google's new math: What is 1/0 ?

[game kid]

What's better, a wrong answer or none? Decide for yourself.

Re:Google's new math: What is 1/0 ?

[nicolas_bourbaki]

Therefore I'm god, or the pope, or both.

But Google is not god: (10^2)! is not displayed entirely and (10^3)! fails.

I look forward to the day when Google gives real calculation power for free like:

isprime(10^43452352134552+1)

Re:Google's new math: What is 1/0 ?

[Quixote]

A link to the document where this came from would be nice.

No clue what about a henway

[winkydink]

at least when I asked it.

What's a henway? Oh, about 3-4 pounds. Nyark, nyark, nyark.

Slashdot effect

[d3matt]

Link
Google knows about the slashdot effect.

Peter Norvig?

[fdicostanzo]

The AI Peter Norvig? He works for Google? Ok, I'm impressed.

I need to get a job there. Where is the math problem that gets me a job?

Re:Peter Norvig?

[Sexual Ass Gerbil]

I took a double take too. It's the same Peter Norvig all CS guys with some AI background should recognize by name. Google is one company that deserves to employee PhDs, and I'm sure guys like Norvig do well in Google's research environment.

Re:Peter Norvig?

[Anonymous Coward]

He has a pretty cool CV too. Check it out:

http://www.norvig.com/vita.html

Besides his Google gig, he has been Division Chief of Computer Sciences at NASA, a senior scientist at Sun in the early 90's, a researcher at Berkeley, and a prof. at USC.

He's also famous for creating Powerpoint slides for the Gettysburg Address:

http://www.norvig.com/Gettysburg/index.htm

Re:Peter Norvig?

[same_old_story]

if you still doubt it:

just goggle 'who is peter norvig' .

OK to remove tinhats...

[kizzbizz]

'... is an Academy Award winning American actress, model, writer, producer, activist and philanthropist' and provides the link to the Wikipedia online encyclopedia's entry for the actress.' Conspirary theories as to the nefarious purpose of Google's aid to Wikipedia may now offically end.

If you ask Google...

[mpupu]

Query: What is Slashdot? Google: "... is a site full of geeks with no life" ;) Actually, it tells you what a slashdotting is.

Web definitions

[The Bungi]

Google has been doing something like this for a while, with their "web definitions" entries. When you ask What is a monitor? for example, you get display consisting of a device that takes signals from a computer and displays them on a CRT screen and a link to the definition in context.

I don't know that "factual" is a good term for a lot of the stuff on Wikipedia, especially "contested" articles that tend to go through revert wars and lots of vandalism.

What is the fastest search engine ?

[openSoar]

What is the fastest search engine? :)

Satisfactory answers.

[Anonymous Coward]

what is the answer to life, the universe, and everything? although it comes from the Calculator, not from Q and A.

Re:Satisfactory answers.

[loqi]

I think you were off by a factor of ten, though...
Google's real truth

Re:Satisfactory answers.

[mikiN]

According to my Google, the answer is: Property.
Oh well, the Universe must have changed into something entirely different or Google doesn't like capitalized sentences...
See for yourself.

Heh

[Sheepdot]

My query:
"Which search engine is the best?"

Google's response:
"AskJeeves."

Re:Heh

[MAdMaxOr]

I asked Jeeves:

Try The New MSN Search
It's More Precise and More Powerful Find Just What You're After

You mean

[evanbd]

they've been delivering fake answers all this time??

Alpha indeed

[pherthyl]

"Portugal population" works, but "portugal population" does not, neither does "population of Portugal"

So it's not very robust yet.. But it looks promising.

Re:Alpha indeed

[akorvemaker]

Also it doesn't work when searching from a one of the localized googles, such as google.ca. The search needs to be done at google.com.

Re:Alpha indeed

[Jameth]

Yes, they do work.

Re:Alpha indeed

[thogard]

And its a different system than the one that copes with "speed of light". Its missing stuff like "price of oil" or "price of gold". It gets "area of missouri" but not "area of germany". It seems to be triggered on a small set of keywords and an associated set.

Re:Alpha indeed

[Avenger337]

What? I just did all three, they all work.

Theoretically, at least, the order you put words into the search engine shouldn't affect anything -- and google disregards "of", so those three strings should be exactly identical.

Re:Alpha indeed

[compm375]

They seem to work now. Maybe they read slashdot...

Re:Alpha indeed

[Mostly a lurker]

The behaviour is interesting. It appears to work randomly. Here is my theory: I believe Google has a rule that the internal response time for any search query must be less than 0.25 seconds. Any response fragments that have not been derived within this cutoff period are just dropped. As a new capability in search, there is probably not yet enough computing power assigned to it to consistently return the information in time.

Re:Alpha indeed

[pherthyl]

Indeed it now seems to be fixed. I tried all of these searches again, and now they all work. I am however, 100% sure that they did not work when I posted the parent comment.

Re:Alpha indeed

[grungeman]

And try entering "german population", and you will get the answer "21 722 287 h". Sounds good, doesn't it? But it's totally wrong, the German population is actually about 80 Million, and what is that "h" supposed to mean?

I am not impressed.

Re:Alpha indeed

[numark]

It works a lot better if you do it in question format. Search for "What is the population of Germany?" and you get an answer somewhere around 82 million (I forget the exact answer).

Re:Alpha indeed

[Jameth]

That problem arises because "What is the German population" does not have a real answer. The population of *Germany* is what you want. The German population, even in Germany, is not the same as that, and really requires that an area be specified. However, of course, Google, doesn't do that specific of stuff well, so asking for a "German population" likely won't get an accurate answer for a while.

Re:Alpha indeed

[mawdryn]

As of 9:30am EDT, "portugal population" does work. Try it again.

Re:Alpha indeed

[cblomqui]

http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=population+of +portugal&FORM=QBHP

At 7:41 pm eastern time...

[PakProtector]

So, how long do we think it will be exactly until the Google Pidgeon Clusters become self aware and begin to correlate all this data only to come up with 42, and a recipe for a nice cup of tea?

Re:At 7:41 pm eastern time...

[ThousandStars]

As other posters have found, it already knows the answer, somehow.

I'm completely unimpressed

[Da_Biz]

It doesn't answer one of the most important questions of our modern times:

"What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?"

Re:I'm completely unimpressed

[TWX]

Funny enough, ask.com used to. You'd put in the question and the first reply would be, "What do you mean, an African or European swallow?"

I think that as ask.com has come to be increasingly corporate that they've removed this unfortunately.

Re:I'm completely unimpressed

[Omnieiunium]

"What do you mean, an African or European swallow?"
It's the first thing I thought of.

Re:I'm completely unimpressed

[Qzukk]

However, the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything comes up as the second hit if you ask it "what do you get when you multiply six and nine" ;)

Re:I'm completely unimpressed

[NewtonPlus]

It does, however, know Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

Kaiser Soze remains safe, though.

Re:I'm completely unimpressed

[gregmckone]

African or European?

Re:I'm completely unimpressed

[2short]

Well at least we're making progress. The query that so consistently vexed the Usenet Oracle, it simply answers.

Re:I'm completely unimpressed

[danila]

May be you will be more impressed with Brain Boost?

When asked What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?, it answers:

• The airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow is roughly 11 meters per second, or 24 miles per hour, beating its wings 7 - 9 times per second rather than 43..

Re:I'm completely unimpressed

[Spudds]

Oh yeah?
Did you try it?

worked for me just fine.

j

Doesnt work on google.co.uk

[Hackeron]

... why doesnt it?

Re:Doesnt work on google.co.uk

[ozmanjusri]

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=why+doesn't+t his+work+on+google.co.uk&btnG=Google+Search&meta=. ..

What is the slashdot effect?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Slashdot effect is a particular example of how a popular website can cause a smaller site to slow down or even temporarily close after causing a great increase in the number of visitors going to the smaller site. The huge influx of web traffic is a result of it being mentioned on Slashdot, a popular technology news and information site. Typically, less robust sites are unable to cope with the huge increase in traffic and become unavailable either their bandwidth is consumed or their servers are unable to cope with the high strain.

Re:Missing link

[FalconZero]

Oddly enough, if you punch the query string into 'google.co.uk' and specify worldwide (ie 'the web' option), it doesn't work.

I could understand google.fr not giving an english description, but google.co.uk?!?!, you guys havn't changed our language that much :p.

Bugs in newsoftware??

[Senjutsu]

What're the odds?!

Hmm...

[themoodykid]

What is the Matrix? doesn't seem to give the right result.

Great!

[Anita Coney]

I've been curious about Britney's actual breast size for a long time now. Maybe Google will help us end this debate once and for all.

I wonder if...

[Timmy D Programmer]

Google can do "The Great Carnac"

And answer the question before the query???

Doesn't work now?

[DJStealth]

Umm.. I've tried the queries in the comment, none of them seem to work for me. Maybe cuz I'm using google.ca?

Re:Doesn't work now?

[DJStealth]

Looks like it only works on the normal google.com site, not on any of the localized sites (google.ca, etc.) for now.

Re:Doesn't work now?

[crabpeople]

works fine for me on google.ca

just appened "what is" to the front of anything

a co worker asked me to try putting what is what is into it

it works!

Re:Doesn't work now?

[DJStealth]

Those "web definitions" are a different service than the Population ones that the article is talking about.

Different sources have different presentations

[RobertB-DC]

Compare the formatting for the question from the article, who is jane fonda, with another question: what is google.

You can do a similar comparison between a couple of search terms from other postings: what is the slashdot effect vs. who was president of the usa in 1996.

Google (currently) appears to format answers it's sure about (what's google, what's the slashdot effect) with an icon and a link to "define:term". Fuzzier matches (Jane Fonda and the putative president) get the nonsequitur text "Property:" and an "According to:" disclaimer.

This looks like something interesting, but clearly still in the early beta. Which is *great*! I love getting a peek behind the curtain.

Re:Different sources have different presentations

[LGagnon]

Actually, it happens most often on the "who" questions and rarely on the "what" questions.

Re:Different sources have different presentations

[stev_mccrev]

Seems to me to be using the older Google Definitions results if it matches "what is x" but using the newer Google Q&A results (that the FA is talking about) if it matches "who is x".

Compare What is Slashdot? to Who is Slashdot?

Re:Different sources have different presentations

[iamnafets]

Another thing to note is that if you happen to change the page in Wikipedia, the definition remains. Either it's cached to prevent the google effect on Wikipedia servers, or they've done something....

Re:Different sources have different presentations

[nursedave]

When what it should *really* say is, "Jane Fonda is a traitor to her country and the soldiers who served it. It is unknown how she has escaped being beaten to death by any of the thousands of former Hanoi Hilton inmates about whom she lied upon return from her trip to Viet Nam giving aid and comfort to the enemy."

Re:Different sources have different presentations

[aussie_a]

I asked it What was the president of the USA in 1996 and it came back with the same response as "who."

Obviously I'm unsure if Pat Choate is a human being, but google is quite unhelpful in my quest for finding out the truth.

I even asked "What is Pat Choate" and it couldn't come back with a simple answer (such as "a human being.") Obviously there is more to Pat then meets the eye.

Re:Different sources have different presentations

[radish]

Free Country (noun): A country who's citizens are able to hold and express their own views, without fear of reprisal, harrasment or inprisonment.

If you actually believe the US is a Free Country, then maybe you should allow her the freedom to express her views, however much you may disagree with them. Call her what you will, but implying she deserves some kind of retribution for expressing those anti-government views seems rather repressive, and, dare I say it, communist.

Re:Different sources have different presentations

[nursedave]

Giving aid and comfort to the enemy is treason. Ok, so she wasn't charged. Fine. But the fact remains that she worked directly against US soldiers being held in the worst VC POW camp, being tortured by their captors. Many of those men remember hearing her voice calling them murderers, and after having done this, the fact that she still breathes is a testament to our soldiers.

Re:Different sources have different presentations

[danila]

Google combines the mature function of definitions (basically what Onelook does and does better) and the prototype answering function (which doesn't work all that well yet).

I suggest you check out Brain Boost, a real answering system that uses AI to change your question into multiple search engine queries, contacts multiples search engines, processes the results, downloads the most relevant pages, uses AI to analyze their relevance, extracts the answers from the most relevant and presents them on a neat results page with links to get additional information, read the source or rate the quality of answers. It's really amazing and it works for all questions with the whole web, not just with a few encyclopedias or definition lists like Google apparently does.

1. who was president of the usa in 1996? - the correct answer is in result 4, not very nice
2. what is the slashdot effect? - several precise definitions
3. what is google? - a lot of answers that give in depth overview of all aspects of what Google really is. Actually, to my taste there was a little too much information.
4. who is jane fonda? - all the information you need, probably not structured very well

Even Pi is Suspect!

[wsanders]

Type in "pi" and you get "pi = 3.14159265"

EVERYBODY knows it's 3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375 10582097494459230781640628620899862803482534211706 79821480865132823066470938446095505822317253594081 28481117450284102701938521105559644622948954930381 96442881097566593344612847564823378678316527120190 91456485669234603486104543266482133936072602491412 73724587006606315588174881520920962829254091715364 36

I hate it when they fudge data like that.

Re:Even Pi is Suspect!

[game kid]

Forget Google. In Medieval times we made do with mystic rhymes.

Re:Even Pi is Suspect!

[hunterx11]

Type in "what is the answer to life, the universe, and everything?" and you get a more factual response.

Re:Even Pi is Suspect!

[Exocet]

If there were no other reason why Google rocked ...this would be enough.

Re:Even Pi is Suspect!

[j-cloth]

Results 1 - 10 of about 3,210,000 for what is the answer to life, the universe, and everything. (0.05 seconds) It took Deep Thought 7.5 million years. I guess google, not the earth, is the computer that Deep Thought was second to.

Re:Even Pi is Suspect!

[nacturation]

try this one out

familiar...

[CloudDrakken]

I remember this movie only the guy forgets everything and then destroys the machine that predicts the future at the end because when it predicts a war we create one and a plague etc google is awesome and this q/a thing is awesome, hopefully google can predict the future soon without making millions at the box office ...moral of the story: stay in school

Re:familiar...

[EdwinBoyd]

Paycheque with Ben Affleck. So you were the other guy in the theatre??

"What is pr0n"

[syntap]

Pr0n is written leet slang for pornography.

pr0n: //. [Usenet, IRC] Pornography. Originally this referred only to Internet
porn but since then it has expanded to refer to just about any kind.

Re:"What is pr0n"

[ImaLamer]

And I thought you were joking!

Re:"What is pr0n"

[thue]

hey, I wrote that! : wikipedia page history

EXAMPLE: What is a first post?

[goombah99]

google query: what is a first post.

answer:

"First Post!" is a phenomenon of Internet discussion groups (notably Slashdot and LiveJournal), where participants strive to be the first person to add a comment ("post") to a new article or discussion thread. The phenomenon is largely confined to sites that have reached a high degree of popularity, such that users are genuinely surprised to see an article without any associated comments. There is also the necessary condition that comments are displayed in chronological order (meaning the first ...

Re:EXAMPLE: What is a first post?

[goombah99]

Web definitions for Goatse Query: What is goatse?

google answer:

Goatse.cx (usually pronounced "goat-see dot see ex", often truncated to goatse, often referenced by one of its current URLs, goat.cx, occasionally called goatsex) is one of the most infamous Internet shock sites. Its front page contains a sexually explicit picture, hello.jpg, featuring a man wearing a gold ring on his left hand (and nothing else) manually stretching his anus and rectum to a diameter roughly equal to the width of his hand. Below the anus, the man's dangling penis and testicles ar

Re:EXAMPLE: What is a first post?

[game kid]

Goatse.cx (usually pronounced "goat-see dot see ex", often truncated to goatse, often referenced by one of its current URLs, goat.cx, occasionally called goatsex) is one of the most infamous Internet shock sites. Its front page contains a sexually explicit picture, hello.jpg, featuring a man wearing a gold ring on his left hand (and nothing else) manually stretching his anus and rectum to a diameter roughly equal to the width of his hand. Below the anus, the man's dangling penis and testicles ar

True, and absolutely hilarious. Almost any word can be searched for in Google, but to see it mention penis and testicles without any explicit effort on the searcher's part is always *clears throat* interesting.

Re:EXAMPLE: What is a first post?

[ashot]

I know both of these are jokes, but this isn't actually the feature that is being refered to here. Rather this is what used to be the google glossary, you can use the define tag to get the definitions explicitly:
http://www.google.com/search?num=100& hl=en&lr=&c2c off=1&q=define%3Afirst%20post&btnG=Search

Re:EXAMPLE: What is a first post?

[kristopher]

I thought you were joking! Haha damn!

Re:EXAMPLE: What is a first post?

[mpathetiq]

no, those are actual responses... i tested it myself.

Re:EXAMPLE: What is a first post?

[ashot]

no, those are actual responses generated by the "glossary" feature which has been built in for about a year (and available longer under labs). You can use it with the 'define:' tag.

Test it out yourself, "define:us population" returns nothing, whereas it does return an answer on the google front page. They are awfully similar things it seems, I don't really know what the difference is per se (maybe answers are meant to be very short, exact, I dunno), but they are seperate features in Google..

Re:EXAMPLE: What is a first post?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&client=safa ri&rls=en-us&q=what+is+a+googol

Re:EXAMPLE: What is a first post?

[jacksonj04]

A google is not a 1 followed by 100 zeroes. You're thinking of a googol.

Re:EXAMPLE: What is a first post?

[XFilesFMDS1013]

Or....maybe because the actual word is googol. Got this interesting little fact from their corporate information page . Of course, since I did get both of these links from Google, they're probably wrong.

Re:EXAMPLE: What is a first post?

[Myen]

Try spelling it correctly:

What is googol

IHBT.

Re:EXAMPLE: What is a first post?

[Lord Ender]

Here is another good one.

What is 42?
forty-two: being two more than forty

Clearly, this feature is not complete.

Re:EXAMPLE: What is a first post?

[NarrMaster]

Yes, but asking the question, as opposed to the answer, reveals the correct result...

Cleary, Google needs a Jeopardy feature:

"Answer: 42"

Or a punchline feature:

"Punchline: 'Rectum? Damn near killed em!'"

Maybe I can find the joke that punchline belongs too, finally...

Re:EXAMPLE: What is a first post?

[alphakappa]

This looks like a joke, but it is actually true.

Re:EXAMPLE: What is a first post?

[mccrew]

Google query: first post

First Post
Great deals on First Post
Shop on eBay and Save!
www.eBay.com

Re:EXAMPLE: What is a first post?

[Headcase88]

Bah, just asking "What is a Googol?" is straightforward and uninteresting.

"What's the log of (a googol divided by a hundred to the power of the answer to life the universe and everything)?"

(the answer is 16).

Re:EXAMPLE: What is a first post?

[danila]

As usual, Brain Boost is just as good. :) Here are some nice picks from the result page:

• If you don t know what Goatse is, my advice to you is, don't do too much googling for it.
• And yeah, if you dont know what goatse is, save your sanity and dont even bother looking it up.
• Goatse is a man, a man of men! A many of many men! A men of meny menny men!
• He is something for us mere mortal men to aspire to.
• Goatse is one disturbed individual. his anus consumes him
• The concept of goatse is a type of troll.

Re:EXAMPLE: What is a first post?

[Guitarzan]

I prefer frist psot

Do no evil is right...

[Momoru]

Well I guess they really are out to do no evil, as this idea is completely counter-productive to the current way they make money, which is by essentially getting people to click paid for search results. If the answer i'm looking for is told to me right at the top, random people will be less likely to click "Find more Jane Fonda at Ebay.com"

Re:Do no evil is right...

[ericbg05]

Well I guess they really are out to do no evil, as this idea is completely counter-productive to the current way they make money, which is by essentially getting people to click paid for search results. If the answer i'm looking for is told to me right at the top, random people will be less likely to click "Find more Jane Fonda at Ebay.com"

Actually, it seems like the kinds of full-sentence queries that trigger the new behavior don't come with ads at all! What is maize , for example, yields no ads, while maize does. IIRC this was the behavior before, too.

Re:Do no evil is right...

[cookiepus]

This only helps. Google's advertizers realize that a certain percentage of clicks are from people who are looking for information and aren't out to buy anything. This knowledge is factored into a price they pay per referal.

If Google implements factual answers, they will potentially get a net increase in their traffic (since they will offer a feature other engines do not). So even if the number of advertiser clicks goes down, the ratio of those clicks being people genuinely interested in buying stuff vs. those who click on shopping sites while looking for info for a report (for example) rendering each click more valuable. This can enable them to charge more per click since they can guarantee better returns.

It could also be a purely defensive move, since other engines are providing serious competition. A while ago MSN reduced the number of paid ads they display. Obviously this is not out of some goodness of heart. It's because they realize that they can improve market share by giving people more of what they want and perhaps less of what brings MSN profit. Google is the same.

Re:Do no evil is right...

[Fortun L'Escrot]

you need to remember to that certain facts like those we expect from an encyclopedia are those being returned as answers. if you ask for the size of gwb's britney's breasts i doubt it would give you an answer. but it will link you to a few sites that might have relevant information

Re:Do no evil is right...

[aussie_a]

If Google implements factual answers, they will potentially get a net increase in their traffic (since they will offer a feature other engines do not)

The evil MSN Search does. And it does it much better then google. It knows who the president of 1996 was, which corporation invented tv, which human being invented tv, unlike google.

Google's playing catch-up with this feature, and at the moment they're doing it poorly.

Unfortunately msn doesn't know if Pat Choate is a human being.

Qoogle: Primum non nocere

[omb]

I continue to be impressed with the quality and real innovation comming from Google, it is now very good and suddenly getting much better

If I were them I would negotiate with AFP, Reuters so that the indexing Robot obeyed a delay time, since even slightly stale news, say 15m for FOREX and Equity prices makes the information unusable for trading.

But, very good, keep it up Google, and show M$ what real innovation is about.

Mistakes?

[darkmeridian]

Google better be careful. What websites do they rely upon? Are these carefully screened to be factual? Imagine searching for "Holocaust" and getting some retarded white power crap as an answer.

don't bother

[way2trivial]

"penis size"
does not work.
nor does
'name' "breast size"

Only works on Google.com

[Kewjoe]

Tried these test samples on Google.ca and I such no such facts. Had to switch to Google.com to get it to work.

Re:Google really is God

[PakProtector]

If the ability to know the Square Root of Pi makes one God, does that mean Mike was right the whole time? "Thou art God?"

Not too impressive

[DaFrogg]

I asked it where the tv remote was. It didn't tell me. Damn, now I gotta dig behind the cushions again.

Is there a God?

[StarsAreAlsoFire]

"There is now."

(Stolen from one of the best short stories ever)

Yes, actually

[seizer]

Click here for a clue :-)

Hell freezing over?

[Anonymous Coward]

Has there ever been a slashdot thread in which a first post and goatse were on topic and insightful?

Re:Hell freezing over?

[ThatsNotFunny]

Yes, Slashdot interviewed Mr. Goatse to find out how he took that picture, he said, "First, take a long metal post, and shove it up your ass..."

Re:Hell freezing over?

[WhitetailKitten]

You, sir, are brilliant.

Re:Hell freezing over?

[ericdfields]

Hell is freezing over _too_ fast. We're nearly frostbitten already... 2012, the aztecs said?

hats off google.

[roror]

weight of pamela anderson

Don't ask it the Meaning of Life

[WillAffleckUW]

it thinks it's fitness or astrology or some religion.

We all know the answer is 42.

Re:Don't ask it the Meaning of Life

[PalmerEldritch42]

Actually, 42 is not the meaning of life. 42 is the ultimate answer to life, the universe, and everything and google knows it...

What is futurama?

[assassinator42]

Google returns: Web definitions for Futurama made a guest appearance as part of a team guarding the space-time continuum, which included Al Gore, Nichelle Nichols (from Star Trek), and Gary Gygax encyclopedia.laborlawtalk.com/Stephen_Hawking - Definition in context Seems more like an answer to "Who is Stephen Hawking?" Perhaps they should use Googlism answers. They'd be more funny. However, it returns many answers. I like "matt is smarter than you" when searching for who I am.

Nor on google.ca

[StratoChief66]

see above. whats the dealio?

Re:Nor on google.ca

[Mad Hughagi]

It's probably because the majority of Canadians would prefer not to be fed figures by the CIA of the USA chez google.com

About that henway question . . .

[Phil Urich]

Google may not have given an explicit answer, but the first result was:

Open Tech Support - More new members coming. ... Posted by: RAcastClarke What is a henway?? Sounds like something involving the transportation of poultry. Posted by: ZLRAC HeHeHe, about four pounds! ...

Which contains the right answer, and gave me a mental image of some sort of mass chicken transportation system! So in this case, no big loss that Google Q&A doesn't supply the answer (though, admittedly, I wasn't actually looking for it, what with you already supplying it and me being the staunch advocate of the metric system regardless).

uh wait ...

[snorklewacker]

What have I been getting before today?

Brainboost versus Google

[Twinbee]

It should be interesting to see how it compares to BrainBoost.com

Out of the 27 question I gave Google from the BrainBoost.com front page, it answered 9 of them. Ask Jeeves also answered 9 of them, but a slightly different set. BrainBoost got them all 'right', but then they are the questions that BrainBoost selected :)

Here are the ones Google got right:
Where is Iraq?
How many people live in Israel?
Who is the CEO of Amazon.com?
Who is Thad Starner?
What is solar wind?
When was Cameron Diaz born?
What is a calorie?

Here are the ones Ask Jeeves got right:
How many people live in Israel?
What is the capital of Indonesia?
Who was the 3rd president of the US?
What is solar wind?
When was Cameron Diaz born?
What is a calorie?
What does HTML stand for?

Re:Brainboost versus Google

[numark]

Well, it seems that Google's parser is sometimes a little strict on the format of the question. For instance, using "What is HTML?" finds a thorough answer to that question. Google also finds the capital of Indonesia correctly using the same question posed to Ask Jeeves.

It doesn't matter

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

We have no idea how accurate the information will end up being

Google doesn't just serve up information like an oracle. It tells you the source where it obtained the information. They can serve up data by throwing round yarrow stalks and looking up the resulting patterns in ancient Chinese manuscripts for all I care. If they give their sources then why do we need to know what their algorithms are in order to judge their veracity?

Who needs askjeeves?

[tetranitrate]

I long time ago I tried askjeeves but found it doesn't actually answer questions. It now appears google makes another site fairly obsolete. Here is an example. I asked what is a minimum spanning tree to both:

Google: Given a connected, undirected graph, a spanning tree of that graph is a subgraph which is a tree and connects all the vertices together. A single graph can have many different spanning trees. We can also assign a weight to each edge, which is a number representing how unfavorable it is, and use this to assign a weight to a spanning tree by computing the sum of the weights of the edges in that spanning tree. A minimum spanning tree or minimum weight spanning tree is then a spanning tree with weig

AskJeeves (first result): Minimum spanning trees How to find minimum spanning tree? The stupid method is to list all spanning trees, and find minimum of list.

Nice job jeeves, that one I could have figured out myself without searching anything.

Hate to say it, but Microsoft has done this alread

[gregory]

Looks like google is the one playing catch up to microsoft this time. Microsoft search has had this feature since it was in beta. And it even gets teh president in 1996 question correct.

http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=president+of+ united+states+in+1996&FORM=QBHP

Are these provided by answer.com ?

[wormbin]

Does anyone know if this is the service that is provided by answer.com ?

I wonder if answer.com gets much cash out of this?

What is what is

[kristopher]

I just had to be a smart ass and ask the question.. What is what is? "Outside of space-time It neither is nor is not-- past, present, and future and all of their apparent contents are spontaneously happening simultaneously; this state/non-state is also referred to as Present Moment and Here and Now; cannot be "experienced" by the ego"

Currency Calculator

[asdren]

I guess Google doesn't want to step on some toes but it bugs me they don't easily do currency conversion
'39 euros to usd'

Re:Currency Calculator

[evilviper]

How can you expect them to do currency conversions? The exchange rate changes every day, how do you expect them to locate and update that data all the time?

It works!

[Anonymous Coward]

How Much Wood Could a Woodchuck Chuck If a Woodchuck Could Chuck Wood?

"As much wood as a woodchuck would if a woodchuck could chuck wood"

Genius!

integration with calculator

[ashot]

they should integrate it with the calculator.. won't be too useful now probably but, perhaps one day. You could already do simple things with what they have:

us defense budget / us population

I'm not sure how much semantic understanding is built into the system, but if they had some then lots of interesting things could come up as well("country with the highest defense spending", "Is there a correlation between x and y for z?")..

interestingly, while the diameter of planets doesn't work, the radius of planets does register with the calculator:

proportion of earth to jupiter

alright.. not that useful.. =]

Re:integration with calculator

[S3D]

It's already integrated with calculator. Type (case sensitive) : the answer to life, the universe, and everything =

better yet...

[Darth Cider]

I'd be happier if there were a one-click method to eliminate from search results every site that wants to sell me something. Getting answers to questions has become akin to wading through spam.

Movie Showtimes / Reviews

[Amoeba Protozoa]

Probably old news to many but...

If you search for a title of a recent movie, or optionally add a ZIP code it will give you the aggregate out of five "star score" and a list of theaters and showtimes near you for the given film.

A search for "Robots 55419" yields the following:

Robots showtimes for 55419
1hr 30min - Rated PG - Animation/Comedy/SciFi/Fantasy - 58 reviews: (3.5 of 5 stars)

AMC Southdale 16 - 400 Southdale Center, Edina, MN - Map
11:10 1:30 4:00 6:30 9:15
AMC Mall of America 14 - 401 South Ave., Bloomington, MN - Map
1:20 2:20 3:40 4:40 6:40 7:40 9:20
More theaters ...

Pretty damned handy if you ask me!

Google "Robots 55419" Query

Also, doing "NWA 0355" yields the status of Northwest Flight 0355...there are similar little things for weather and even FedEx/UPS/USPS packages too.

Anybody aware of any other cools ones?

-AP

Re:Movie Showtimes / Reviews

[Omnieiunium]

http://www.google.com/help/features.html

Here is a list of all those features

Re:Movie Showtimes / Reviews

[Alexius]

With all of these feautres, I wonder how long it will be until Google sells a handheld/palmtop device that is just a front end for Google.

Re:Movie Showtimes / Reviews

[BlueHands]

well, you can text the same message to google and get the response....and resurants......

google is more then a bit cool......

Uh,

[game kid]

"I think they suspect something sir." --SOCOM (PS2 game), single player

Re:Uh,

[PakProtector]

I'm not paying you to think, son, I'm paying you to keep your meaty carcass between me and the enemy's bullets!

Re:there's a bug...

[KingSkippus]

It doesn't return answers for the world's most important questions: "Who is your daddy?"...

Weird, when I put that it, it told me exactly who your father is. I'd be concerned if I were you...

Microsoft apologetics, listen up!

[hdparm]

It Is Officialy Poper Acronym!!!

Re:Microsoft apologetics, listen up!

[hermank]

o! google also returned the same entry for Micro$oft.

And google also knows what is 'internet exploder' !

two features

[dspeyer]

There are two new features described here.

The "what is" searches are taking from glossary. "what is foo" returns the first entry from "define:foo" along with a slightly re-ordered web search for "foo". This is a rather minor new feature: really just a UI tweak.

The ability to search for facts is new, unrelated, and much more impressive (even if there aren't many facts in it yet).

Re:two features

[ashot]

the "what is" feature is not new though, thats all I'm saying.. they added it to the search with "define" in 2003, and started parsing "what is" kind of stuff in 2004

Re:two features

[maxwell demon]

the "what is" feature is not new though, thats all I'm saying.. they added it to the search with "define" in 2003, and started parsing "what is" kind of stuff in 2004

Bah. Unix had whatis for much longer. And it works quite well, too:

$ whatis Windows
Windows: nothing appropriate.

Re:two features

[biophysics]

$ whatis linux
linux: nothing appropriate.
$ whatis unix
unix: nothing appropriate.
$ uname -a
Linux guitar 2.6.11-smp #1 SMP Mon Mar 28 15:37:12 UTC 2005 i686 athlon i386 GNU/Linux

Re:Have to add this correction, flame away

[Versatile Dinosaur]

I was hoping someone would say that. Amen!

how much would he chuck?

[nhtshot]

how much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood

Answer:
Woodchuck
Could Chuck: As much wood as a woodchuck would if a woodchuck could chuck wood.
According to http://www.enchantedlearning.com/rhymes/Woodchuck. shtml

what is xp

[lliquidcamel]

I was thrilled to discover that Unix In "an operating system that supports multitasking and is ideally suited to multi-user applications (such as networks)." and XP is "An XML parser in Java by James Clark. James Clark's XP Homepage" That pretty much fits with my world view.

I was expecting Slashdot as an answer...

[illest503]

Which news site is infactuated with google?

Oh well, maybe with time the correct answer will come up...

Re:bad idea.

[t_allardyce]

Agreed, but technically any question can have a edge of controvasy if you dig deep enough - "population of israel" is an obvious one. Not so obvious would be "how tall is the empire state building" - should the answer be in meters or feet??

Portugal but not Portland?

[mikeraz]

Still some implementation to do. You can get the population of Portugal, Spain or San Jose. Searches for San Francisco, Seattle or Portland Ore., don't get the top of page answer treatment.

That's not strictly correct.

[zippthorne]

The answer to the ultimate question of life the universe and everything is 42.

The question is still unknown as the computer responsible for solving it was destroyed shortly before completing its task. That machane has since been rebuilt, but as it was somewhat of a rush job, there is likely some corruption in the results.

At any rate, the most recent known output from said computer is, "What is six times nine?" Which cannot be the ultimate question: six times nine equals fifty-four. so google needs to fix its calculator.

It's not always factual...

[Dwonis]

What is an Amiga?:

This was a 16-bit home computer running games off of disk. Because it was 16-bit the graphics were far better than the Amstrad, Spectrum and Commodore games. In fact most games were made first for the Amiga and then downsized to fit the other formats. You could play games on keyboard or two button joystick. This was a very popular computer in it's time. Made mid-late eighties and lasted until the mid nineties.

(The Amiga was actually a 32-bit computer with 12-bit graphics.)

Re:It's not always factual...

[Dwonis]

Hmm... Ok, looking at the schematics for my A500, I see a 24-bit address bus and a 16-bit data bus.

Facts All Come With Points Of View

[cmd]

I am reminded of the Talking Heads lyric, "Facts all come with points of view." I'm not sure Google really wants to be in the business of determining what the facts are.

Yuck

[hey]

I don't much like this.

Its like they are trying to take over the web.

Lets say your website was the top Google search for, say, weather in New York. You got tons of hits. Now you'll get zero because Google steals the
hits and displays the weather itself.

So before Google shared... now it doesn't.
A bit evil.

"george bush age"

[Shimmer]

Try the query yourself and check the source of the answer: clicky.

Needs some work, I think.

How much wood...

[jamsessionjay]

google query:
how much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

google response:
As much wood as a woodchuck would if a woodchuck could chuck wood.

This is the greatest use of technology the world has ever seen.

Amazon Basin

[Darthmalt]

I know it says only a few answers as of now but I'm surprised they dont have

average rainfall of the amazon basin

Do believe everything you read on the internet...

[SamSim]

NOT!

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a wood-

[CTalkobt]

chuck could chuck wood?

It works, it replied back w/ :

Woodchuck
Could Chuck: As much wood as a woodchuck would if a woodchuck could chuck wood.
According to http://www.enchantedlearning.com/rhymes/Woodchuck. shtml

Misread

[gnovos]

I thought is said FRACTAL answers... Like the google search results would all be links to other google search results.

Who's so fat?

[darekana]

Who's so fat?

(bad joke... sorry)

Re:Who's so fat?

[StormyWeather]

Web definitions for Yo mamma: "The dozens" is an African American custom in which two competitors -- usually males -- go head to head in a competition of often ribald "trash talk." They take turns insulting -- "cracking" or "ranking" on -- one another, their adversary's mother or other family member until one of them has no comeback. This is called playing the dozens or doin' the dozens and sometimes dirty dozens. The dozens is a contest of personal power -- of wit, self-control, verbal ability, mental agility and mental t

They're pretty quick at the Googleplex

[coldcup]

This is basically what upstart http://www.factbites.com/ does. Factbites was announced a month or so ago.

I love you, Google

[Rie Beam]

Web definitions for ice cream

Ice cream is cold, creamy, and sweet treat. ice cream cone An ice cream cone is nice to eat on a hot summer day. iced tea Iced tea is a cold drink. jam Jam is a spread made from fruit. jelly Jelly is a spread made from fruit juice.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&c2 coff=1&q=What+is+Ice+cream%3F&btnG=Search

It's stupid though

[rk]

I asked it "what is the answer to life, the universe, and everything in attoparsecs per microfortnight?" and it couldn't do it. ;-)

Google delivering WRONG answers!

[Palal]

Type in "Where is san francisco" You'll get: San Francisco Zoo Location: One Zoo Rd., San Francisco The city itself may be a zoo, but the zoo is not in the center of the city.

Semi-OT: your .sig...

[ktakki]

Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.

Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just Google.

k.

Another example

[Lord of Ironhand]

google query: who is cowboyneal

answer:

... is the online nickname ("handle") on Slashdot and other websites of Slashdot editor Jon Pater.

Who'd have thought.

No cigar

[captfi]

Google is always on the verge of making me say "holly shit thats amazing" but never quite gets there.

"portugal population"
and getting an answer is great. realy cool stuff.

This would be cooler though:
("portugal population")+10=
Doesn't work. But I don't see why it shouldn't.

Or even this:
"size of portugal" works.
But:
"size of portugal" in square feet. Doesn't.

They have all the seperate pieces working.
I bet someone there is pulling their hair out
trying to get it to all work together.

You want factual answers...

[IdJit]

try the Intelligent Question Answering System!!

I asked google 'who is John Galt?'

[havaloc]

and it told me "Born in Irvine, Ayrshire, Galt was the son of a naval captain"
Who is John Galt?

SafeSearch doesn't work...

[dantheman82]

I tested "What is goatse?" which is seemingly innocuous for some noobs to /. with SafeSearch turned on as a setting. Unfortunately, for the little kid (your daughter) or unsuspecting person, SafeSearch isn't a great protection from that stuff.

This may be hard to implement, but while they're formatting, they could run SafeSearch on the blurbs...

Answers.com

[TooManyNames]

I don't know if anybody else has used this site before, but it seems to implement fairly well the same service that google is trying to create. Granted, I don't think Answers.com tries to accept actual queries in a complete form (like "Who was JFK?") but searching for JFK gives answers immediately.

Re:Answers.com

[GuyErnest]

The thin line between giving trivial information and giving too much information, tested here.

Answers.com are, IMHO, on the trivial side. Sure they are saying something, but it only gives the impression of information. It is great for Quiz, but it is nothing for research. The same goes for Google new factual BETA.
Of course Google usually is on the "too much information" side of the line, and it is good to see that they are testing this balance.

It is nice as a gimmick, it is nice as an idea. It is far from being a usable tool.

Re:Answers.com

[taj123]

I'd say answers.com is an extremely usable tool. It's getting great press from Forbes, Wall Street Journal, etc and traffic is ramping up very quickly. See this URL for some interesting reviews:
http://www.answersblogger.blogspot.com/

Re:Answers.com

[GuyErnest]

It is nice to have a blog that is run by the company on the company.

They have great press and nice prodcut, far from exciting.

Idea: Google Job search

[DMC_DMC_DMC]

Google needs to comeout with a searhc just for jobsites. It is such a mess, my wife goes to 5-10 sites a day looking for a job, what a PITA. I am guessing Google could make some suh-weet ad revinue off that too...

Google Weather

[grimiore1]

Strangely, a few days back i wanted to know the weather in Phoenix. So I just typed in (without knowing about this feature yet) "phoenix weather" and was surprised that I got a google answer back. However, a normal person would've typed in "what is the weather in phoenix?", which won't return a google answer. Hmm

Good, I've always wondered about this thing...

[Jugalator]

What is sex?
sexual activity: activities associated with sexual intercourse; "they had sex in the back seat"

But that of course doesn't tell me much!!
Speak to a geek, don't speak greek!

What is sexual intercourse?
The erect penis of the male entering the vagina of the female.

Thanks, Google! So it's sort of a merge of two organs? Like a organic puzzle? Ahh, I knew it could be something like that! Cool... Nature sure is clever for not being designed by Linus!

(actually, those questions are indeed answered like this)

Re:Hate to say it, but Microsoft has done this alr

[The Cydonian]

The difference, naturally, is that Microsoft uses only Encarta for its results, whereas Google, at least in theory, uses the entire web to parse its results. (In practice of course, most of the results seem to be coming from either Wikipedia or CIA's factbook, but still)

Have you tried the "define" command...

[atlacatl]

define:copyright

I doubt this will last long - It stops any user looking for information to go to the actual site where the information came from. Sure, they tell you where it's comming from, however, the ball stops at google - At least for me - Why would I go to the actual site if I've found what I wanted?

This sounds very similar: News agency suing Google.

Google Delivering Factual Answers

[happymedium]

A welcome change. Before, it delivered only lies.

42 is the answer

[SEWilco]

You asked about 42.
Perhaps you intended to ask: What is the answer to life, the universe, and everything?

Re:42 is the answer

[mattkinabrewmindspri]

So ask "what is the answer to life the universe and everything" and see what you get.

seems to work to me.

Re:42 is the answer

[DjMd]

Oh my god.. that is awesome!

Re:42 is the answer

[SEWilco]

I intentionally did not show quotation marks. If you put quotation marks around it, you get a "definition" answer pointing at Wikipedia. If you ask Google the question without quotation marks, you get the "answer".

What is really interesting is what is attached to the Google "answer". It's not obviously relevant, unless you really know the background and you're really in on the answer.

Huh?

[aeinome]

I tried a random search with this new service, and, well, see for yourself. Note the "Did you mean". Poor, poor Spain.

A better way to Google onesself (or others)

[agacat]

I put in 'who is "(my name in quotes)"?' and, although the first entry was my daughter instead of me, the rest of the entries were actually about me instead of a Cuban poetess who shares my name.

Wow, it works...

[anthony_dipierro]

I tried "Who is more evil than satan himself?" and it popped up a message saying "Bill Gates is more evil than satan himself" complete with a link to Gates' webpage at Microsoft.

The Last Question

[FleaPlus]

I tried asking Google if entropy could be reversed, but it seems that there's insufficient data for a meaningful answer. ;)

Heheh... I liked this one

[stratjakt]

I just happened to be playing through Conker's Bad Fur Day, so I typed in "Who is Conker?" just for the hell of it..

I got this:

is the name used in Britain, Ireland and some former British colonies for the nuts of the Horse

When I read the wiki link, it's actually discussing the Horse-Chestnut tree, Conker's being a colloquialism for it's nuts.

Oh Google, and your wacky truncations!

I know...

[ImaLamer]

I tried 'what is real ultimate power?'

Ninjas? Are you kidding me? Everyone knows Terri Schiavo is real ultimate power. Maybe George W. Bush, maybe, but freaking ninjas?

Who decided that?

Re:I know...

[Johnny5000]

ninjas have been real ultimate power for longer than terri schiavo has even existed.
they've got stars! and magic!

In the case of Wikipedia...

[greppy]

...rather a lot of people pee in said fountain.

Image searches.

[Hans Lehmann]

Even when not doing an image search, Google now seems to return images when that would be a better response than just a URL. I stumbled upon this new behavious when searching for an image of a protractor

Limited to English?

[LuYu]

This service also appears to be limited to English. It did not work until I switched to the English version of Google (no, I did not test all the languages -- the page normally comes up in Chinese for me).

Bush

[SEWilco]

Who is George Bush?
Google does not answer.

Re:Bush

[Walt Dismal]

I typed in "asshat" and got 'Dick Cheney'. Does this help?

Heh. Three.

[Umbrae]

Try searching:

how many licks does it take to get to the tootsie roll center of a tootsie pop?

link: here

42

[Headcase88]

5 + 6 = 11

the answer to life the universe and everything = 42

Don't worry, Google's down with it.

different answers to same question

[Dr.Opveter]

this
United States
Population: 293,027,571 (July 2004 est.)
According to http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/field s/2119.html
that
United States
Population: 293,027,571
According to http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/ranko rder/2119rank.html

I wonder why there's different results for every other time i click search..

I've seen it in a movie!

[LittleBigLui]

The Terminator: The Google Funding Bill is passed. The system goes on-line August 4th, 1997. Human decisions are removed from strategic defense. Google begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug.

MSN

[Headcase88]

ahem.

OMG!

[Headcase88]

Actually, there's a very viable alternative.

(sorry.)

Other nice things...

[shutdown -p now]

Not sure if it was there before, but try e.g. this

A Bit Disappointed...

[kimanaw]

Who is John Galt ?

At least they got something right: Who is Bob Dobbs ?

Apples and Oranges - Prez of USA and MSN

[mcrbids]

You MUST be a 'softie'. You mixed apples and oranges, carefully gaming MSN to get the right answer...

Try giving MSN the same question Google was set to answer:

Try it. Not much better, is it?

I hope they pay you well...

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Not ready yet for prime time

[uXs]

As long as it doesn't answer "African or European?" to the question "What is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow ?", it's just not ready yet.

Re:Not ready yet for prime time

[cmpalmer]

Knowing Google, they'll have that hard coded in by this afternoon...

When to worry:

[Kaenneth]

Where is Bob?

Bob:
Property: ... is going to the dentist today.
According to http://gmail.com/Bob's_Sent_Mail

Not accurate....

[Numen]

Do a query of "tenerife population" and you'll be told 214,000 which if you navigation to the source you'll see is the population of Santa Cruz.

Now the page in question is indeed about Tenerife, and reasonably goes on to mention it's Capital, Santa Cruz and it's population.

Invisible Web tapped - Google's own GA DB not so

[psytrance]

Nice to see Google is the major player picking up the Invisible Web issue, mining databases other than its own.

If they would only index their own Google Answers database better - currently search is the only way *Sigh*. It screams for dmoz.org-quality indexing. This promising service could be so much more mature this way.

How well would it work?

[danila]

Seriously, Google used to be a clearly superior innovative search service, but today I am not so sure.

I just tested Brain Boost - an AI-based Internet answering service. I asked it When will Wikipedia DVD be launched? and was told about the German DVD release on April 1. I then refined my question to When will English Wikipedia DVD be launched? and was told that it will happen "later this year".

Meanwhile, Google had not answered the same question. There were no relevant results on the first page (judging from the summaries), though there was a reference to this Slashdot article.

I don't know how well this Google Q&A thing works in those rare cases when it does work, but Brain Boost told me that the population of Portugal is about 10.5 million people. It has also told me (all on the reults page) that

overall population density of about 113 persons per sq. km

The population of Portugal is ageing, with nearly 3.5 million people over the age of 50 in 2003

almost half of the population is economically active

Brazil has a [portuguese speaking] population of approximately 151 million

I think this is leaps and bounds better than lame half-assed attempt by Google, especially considering that Brain Boost works with ALL questions, doesn't require ANY HUMAN input and is completely and totally AUTONOMOUS.

Google sucks, Brain Boost rules! I want a direct interface to Brain Boost, like this guy. :)

Who's your daddy?

[edibleplastic]

Who's Your Daddy?
Property: ... is a colloquial phrase that gained popularity in the first years of the 21st Century.

Finally an answer to this

[Arminator]

If Google would have had this before, we would have been spared of two more or less sucky and obviously offtopic movies:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&c2 coff=1&q=what+is+the+matrix&btnG=Search

google playing catch-up to msn?

[utexaspunk]

msn search appears to have this feature as well, and it seems to work better in many instances. compare this to this

Re:Hate to say it, but Microsoft has done this alr

[mallardtheduck]

And MSN seems to be awfully biased:
Query: What is a gate?
Answer: Gates, William Henry, III (1955-), American business executive, who serves as chairman and chief software architect of Microsoft Corporation, the...

http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=what+is+a+gat e%3F&srch_type=0&FORM=QBRE

Re:It works!

[mat.h]

Feels like this new Google feature is just an expanded version of Norvig's ELIZA recreation from his (great) book Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming.

Google common word search

[screwthemoderators]

I don't know the details, but google treats common words like "wildcards" rather than ignoring them altogether. Replacing "is" with "it" will give you the same results, for example. Google is omitting the "search terms," but taking into account that some sort of combination of letters there. Its like searching for "** there * God" as opposed to "there God"

google has been my spell dictionary

[peter303]

If I dont remember if its -ibile or -abile etc. I just type into google and it suggests the correct one.

Wait until Microsoft goes open source!

[ggvaidya]

Yup, Microsoft releasing a true-to-life open-source program available for free for those who need to use it would just about signal a cold, cold hell, but hey, what're the odds that'll happen any time soon?

What's the Frequency, Kenneth?

[Muad'Dave]

It didn't know the frequency whether I called it Kenneth or not, but it did know about the REM song.

Nice use of Wikipedia taxonomy

[Henk Poley]

Probably too late for the discussion, but..

Whow, nice use of the Wikipedia taxonomy (just a simple form of ontology, with only classes/classifications). They probably let part of the sentence ("Who is..") trigger certain categories (aka: Category:People). Then they do a lookup for the subject of your query within these categories.

What is 31337?

[PhraudulentOne]

Web definitions for 31337
Leet (most commonly 1337 but often also leetspeak, leetspeek, l33t5p34k, 133t, or l33t) from the phonetic form of the word "elite", is a cipher, or novel form of English spelling. It is characterized by the use of non-alphabetic characters to stand for letters bearing a superficial resemblance, and by a number of spelling changes such as the substitution of "z" for final "s" and "x" for "(c)ks" (or vice versa, such as in the often-humorously intended phrasing of "buttsex" as "buttsecks" or "bu77
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/31337 - Definition in context

Info for Average Slashdotter

[PhraudulentOne]

What is woman?
an adult female person (as opposed to a man); "the woman kept house while the man hunted"
www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn - Definition in context

What is sexual intercourse?
... In a wider context, the term "sexual intercourse" may refer to a wider range ... The missionary position is one popular position for sexual intercourse ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_intercourse

Whoa, if first impressions are the ones who count

[HishamMuhammad]

...then Brain Boost really scored. I was thinking of some question to try it out, and (based on what's playing on BBC 6music right now -- Friday's funk show) I came up with this question, not really realizing how tricky it is:

Who wrote Sex Machine?

This is what I got: a result pointing to an article saying that William "Bootsy" Collins (of Funkadelic fame) co-wrote the James Brown song.

Compare the results from Google and Ask Jeeves.

Now all I need is to configure a bb: shortcut in Konqueror's Enhanced Browsing dialog...

Re:Which makes me a bed-wetter

[Quila]

Regardless of what Jane did back in the early 70's I think it's inappropriate at this point to call her a "traitor."

She adhered to the enemies of the United States and gave them aid and comfort. I picked that wording carefully, since those words are used to define the only crime listed in the Constitution: treason.

Bedwetting, womanizing, drug use, petty theft, all forgivable things in an otherwise good person's life. Treason? Uh, no, there is a limit to what we can attribute to "youthful indiscretions" (hehe, I love that phrase, thank you Bush).

a user's wishes on the virge of fulfillment

[little_prince]

I guess it is more than an year now, when I was trying out some service (possibly search related) at hotmail.com and they had an option about giving some feedback to them. At that point no search engine provided a search facility that dealt with a simpleton querry like - "Where is TajMahal?" and gave more precise answers to this querry rather than loads of results. I had filled in that feedback form, if hotmail search engine could provide such kind of features in (then) near future, it could put it differently ahead of other search engines. No feedback came from them. Well, it couldn't have been expected either as the been-filled-up form mentioned not to expect feedbacks.

feels happy that as a user of search engines I felt a need for improvement there that voila! somebody has even taken steps towards that.