Google Delivering Factual Answers 424
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."
Re:Not quite. (Score:5, Informative)
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:And? (Score:3, Informative)
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:Alpha indeed (Score:2, Informative)
Doesn't work now? (Score:2, Informative)
Different sources have different presentations (Score:5, Informative)
You can do a similar comparison between a couple of search terms from other postings: what is the slashdot effect [google.com] vs. who was president of the usa in 1996 [google.com].
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.
"What is pr0n" (Score:4, Informative)
pr0n:
porn but since then it has expanded to refer to just about any kind.
Re:Peter Norvig? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Peter Norvig? (Score:1, Informative)
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:EXAMPLE: What is a first post? (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.google.com/search?num=100
Re:EXAMPLE: What is a first post? (Score:5, Informative)
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:Movie Showtimes / Reviews (Score:4, Informative)
Here is a list of all those features
two features (Score:5, Informative)
The "what is" searches are taking from glossary. "what is foo [google.com]" returns the first entry from "define:foo [google.com]" along with a slightly re-ordered web search for "foo [google.com]". 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:AFP vs Google News (Score:4, Informative)
Hope they add this feature to these sites soon though.
Re:EXAMPLE: What is a first post? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:EXAMPLE: What is a first post? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:EXAMPLE: What is a first post? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:EXAMPLE: What is a first post? (Score:2, Informative)
What is googol [google.com]
IHBT.
Re:And? (Score:3, Informative)
... or you could just go to Portugal's statisical office [www.ine.pt]. 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? (Score:2, Informative)
I'd guess that is one of those things that seam more important to the programmer than it actually is for the user.
Re:EXAMPLE: What is a first post? (Score:4, Informative)
42 (Score:2, Informative)
the answer to life the universe and everything = 42 [google.com]
Don't worry, Google's down with it.
Apples and Oranges - Prez of USA and MSN (Score:2, Informative)
Try giving MSN the same question Google was set to answer:
Try it. [msn.com] Not much better, is it?
I hope they pay you well...