We all know how fast the world wide web changes and this week has been no exception especially for the folks at Google. If you have blinked you might have missed a new software release, an upgraded search feature or something new to experiment with in Google Labs. But don’t worry we’ve summarised the news that has been getting the geeks in the office excited:
New Google search page
Have you noticed the new fade in feature on Google’s search page? When the page first loads it now only shows the logo, search bar and buttons with he rest of the page content removed. Visit google.com but don’t move your mouse straight away, when you do move your mouse see the rest of the page features appear. Magic or just good usability?
Real time search results
For those of you that use twitter you’ll be familiar with trending topics and real time search. If you aren’t a Twitter user you might have seen media coverage of the Hudson river plane crash and even Micheal Jackson death being released on twitter before any other website or news channel. Unfortunately until now Google’s search results didn’t display results in real time; this week however saw the integration of real time results from twitter, yahoo and even facebook. Try a Google search for a topic in the news and watch as your search results change.
Google Chrome for mac
Google Chrome has been available for PC users giving them a faster online experience for a while. This week Google released a beta version for the mac, it is still missing a few of the features from the windows version including PDF support and a bookmark manager but we think it’s still worth considering
If you are a PC user you haven’t been forgotten; Google have also released Google Chrome Extensions for Windows.
Google Goggles
We thought we’d save the best until last.
This week Google have also announced an experimental application for Android powered mobile phones which lets the user take a picture which Google then processes and returns related search results. Watch the video – it’s very cool if not a little scary: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hhgfz0zPmH4
PS. We’ve all been trying to figure out how Google’s search engine algorithm works but the secret is finally out: http://www.insideyoursearch.com/
Tags: google