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."
AFP vs Google News (Score:5, Interesting)
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 (Score:4, Interesting)
EXAMPLE: What is a first post? (Score:5, Funny)
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? (Score:5, Funny)
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? (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.google.com/search?num=100
Re:EXAMPLE: What is a first post? (Score:2, Insightful)
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..
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:EXAMPLE: What is a first post? (Score:3, Interesting)
What is 42?
forty-two: being two more than forty
Clearly, this feature is not complete.
Hell freezing over? (Score:5, Funny)
Semi-OT: your .sig... (Score:5, Funny)
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just Google.
k.
In the case of Wikipedia... (Score:3, Funny)
Another example (Score:3, Interesting)
answer:
Who'd have thought.
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:4, Informative)
Re:AFP vs Google News (Score:3, Insightful)
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 (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:AFP vs Google News (Score:3, Insightful)
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 "mor
Re:AFP vs Google News (Score:2)
Re:AFP vs Google News (Score:4, Informative)
Hope they add this feature to these sites soon though.
Who's so fat? (Score:4, Funny)
(bad joke... sorry)
And? (Score:4, Interesting)
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? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:And? (Score:5, Funny)
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? (Score:5, Funny)
What was scary was I asked Google "Is there a God?" and it replied, "Yes. now there is a God." [alteich.com]
Re:And? (Score:5, 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? (Score:5, Funny)
(chomp-munch-chomp)
"So... mmf... Bill..."
(chomp-munch-gulp)
"Yuh?"
(crunch... chomp-munch-gulp)
"There god?"
(suck-chomp-munch)
"Ah'uh know."
Re:And? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:And? (Score:3, Interesting)
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 gu
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:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
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? (Score:2)
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? (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.
Even Pi is Suspect! (Score:5, Funny)
EVERYBODY knows it's 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937
I hate it when they fudge data like that.
Re:Even Pi is Suspect! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:And? (Score:2)
In the end, very little actual accountability.
It's the web, after all.
They're working on it.
It doesn't matter (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:And? (Score:2)
[...]what level of accountability is there that this information is correct?
I dunno. Why don't you find out yourself? [google.com]
Re:And? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:And? (Score:3, Insightful)
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."
Not quite. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Bugs in newsoftware?? (Score:2)
Hate to say it, but Microsoft has done this alread (Score:5, Insightful)
http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=president+of
Re:Hate to say it, but Microsoft has done this alr (Score:3, Insightful)
Google's new math: What is 1/0 ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Google's new math: What is 1/0 ? (Score:2)
No clue what about a henway (Score:3, Funny)
What's a henway? Oh, about 3-4 pounds. Nyark, nyark, nyark.
Slashdot effect (Score:2, Interesting)
Google knows about the slashdot effect.
Peter Norvig? (Score:2, Funny)
I need to get a job there. Where is the math problem that gets me a job?
Re:Peter Norvig? (Score:2, Informative)
If you ask Google... (Score:3, Funny)
Web definitions (Score:2, Insightful)
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 ? (Score:2)
Satisfactory answers. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Satisfactory answers. (Score:2, Funny)
Google's real truth [google.com]
Re:Satisfactory answers. (Score:2, Interesting)
Oh well, the Universe must have changed into something entirely different or Google doesn't like capitalized sentences...
See for yourself. [google.com]
Heh (Score:5, Funny)
"Which search engine is the best?"
Google's response:
"AskJeeves."
Re:Heh (Score:2, Funny)
Try The New MSN Search
It's More Precise and More Powerful Find Just What You're After
You mean (Score:2)
Alpha indeed (Score:5, Interesting)
So it's not very robust yet.. But it looks promising.
Re:Alpha indeed (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Alpha indeed (Score:2)
Re:Alpha indeed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Alpha indeed (Score:2)
At 7:41 pm eastern time... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Uh, (Score:2)
I'm completely unimpressed (Score:5, Funny)
"What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?"
Re:I'm completely unimpressed (Score:5, Funny)
I think that as ask.com has come to be increasingly corporate that they've removed this unfortunately.
Re:I'm completely unimpressed (Score:2)
Hmm... (Score:2, Funny)
Great! (Score:5, Funny)
I've been curious about Britney's actual breast [lycos.co.uk] size for a long time now. Maybe Google will help us end this debate [liquidgeneration.com] once and for all.
Doesn't work now? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Doesn't work now? (Score:2)
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.
Do no evil is right... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Do no evil is right... (Score:2)
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. th
Qoogle: Primum non nocere (Score:2, Insightful)
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? (Score:2)
don't bother (Score:2)
does not work.
nor does
'name' "breast size"
Is there a God? (Score:4, Funny)
(Stolen from one of the best short stories ever)
hats off google. (Score:2, Funny)
uh wait ... (Score:2)
Brainboost versus Google (Score:3, Interesting)
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?
Are these provided by answer.com ? (Score:2)
Does anyone know if this is the service that is provided by answer.com [slashdot.org] ?
I wonder if answer.com gets much cash out of this?
Currency Calculator (Score:2, Interesting)
'39 euros to usd'
It works! (Score:5, Funny)
"As much wood as a woodchuck would if a woodchuck could chuck wood"
Genius!
integration with calculator (Score:4, Interesting)
us defense budget [google.com] / us population [google.com]
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 [google.com]
alright.. not that useful.. =]
better yet... (Score:2)
Movie Showtimes / Reviews (Score:5, Interesting)
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:
Pretty damned handy if you ask me!
Also, doing "NWA 0355" yields the status of Northwest Flight 0355 [google.com]...there are similar little things for weather [google.com] and even FedEx/UPS/USPS packages too.
Anybody aware of any other cools ones?
-AP
Re:Movie Showtimes / Reviews (Score:4, Informative)
Here is a list of all those features
Microsoft apologetics, listen up! (Score:2)
how much would he chuck? (Score:3, Funny)
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
Re:Missing link (Score:2)
I could understand google.fr not giving an english description, but google.co.uk?!?!, you guys havn't changed our language that much
Re:Google really is God (Score:2)
Yes, actually (Score:2)
Re:Don't ask it the Meaning of Life (Score:2)
Re:there's a bug... (Score:2)
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...