Google's intelligent search engine

Google House - a small tent city in which Google's various services are presented to visitors - promises its inhabitants that Google's apps and products will make their everyday lives easier. The guided tour through Google House gave an insight into the playful, but also tech-savvy world of Google. And Google today is indeed "also an iPhone" - or a virtual assistant. This consists of Google Now, Google Voice Search, Google Maps and Google Translate. For example, users can find out about the weather or quickly check what movies are showing before taking the streetcar home. Google voice search reacts to voice recognition, which does not yet work as desired with imprecise pronunciation or in a noisy environment. With Google Street View, users can not only rotate their tablet 360 degrees, but also look up and count the clouds in the sky. When on vacation, you can quickly take a photo of the menu and the corresponding translation is already there. And yet all these functions ultimately come down to one thing: the search for information - only further developed.

The Knowledge Graph

Google's search function has also been further developed and is called the Knowledge Graph. It currently consists of over 60 trillion individual pages and collects information about various things in the real world. Data on well-known personalities, such as their date of birth and height, is linked to other data in the Knowledge Graph, such as information on origin or an era. For example, the Google Graph can answer the question "How many children does Roger Federer have?" using intelligent data linking. So far so clear. What's new is that follow-up questions can now be asked in the further development. In other words, the question can refer to the previous one. So is the Knowledge Graph simply another playful additional function of Google Search, like Google Voice Search? Matthias Meyer, spokesperson for Google Switzerland, explains the benefits of the Knowledge Graph for search and what is planned for its further development:  

Matthias Meyer on the Knowledge Graph

WW: What is the Knowledge Graph?
Matthias Meyer: We are still at the very beginning of the search. Just a few years ago, the only search results you were shown were blue links. The search has improved over time. Depending on the search query, we also show you small images or videos. Since last year, we have also been showing so-called units in the search results in German - the Knowledge Graph.

What kind of information is this?
This is information that already exists on the web and has been indexed by Google Search. They are organized thematically and thus help the user to find the right source for their question more quickly. What's new is that Google now understands that Stephan Eicher is a singer, for example. Or that Paris is a city. The search now shows "things, not just strings". So it's no longer just blue links that you used to get when searching. Google now understands units.

In other words, information is simply presented in a new way?
Exactly, the information is displayed on the right-hand side of the Google search. The Knowledge Graph is practical for the user because all the information on a topic is arranged in an overview. They can explore search results and find the right page to answer their question more quickly.

What is the aim of this further development?
We want to help people find the right information faster, but also discover things that may be of interest to them and that they may not even have considered. For example, I'm looking for a musician, but I don't know his name. But now I know that he lived around the same time as Mozart. The Knowledge Graph shows me related search queries. For example, I find Ludwig van Beethoven and Sebastian Bach. That was a simple example, but in the end it goes in exactly this direction. With the Knowledge Graph, you get answers to questions that may not even have occurred to you.

So will the Knowledge Graph give me practical instructions directly in line with my question in the near future?
The Knowledge Graph can answer my question with contextual information. As always with Google, I am then taken to the page where the information can be found.

How will Google Search develop?
The Knowledge Graph was an important step and has improved our voice search. I can now have a conversation with Google. You can click on the microphone icon in the Google search app and say: "Who is Roger Federer?" Google answers me. Then I ask, "How old is HE?" Google understands that this is a follow-up question. Ultimately, that's our vision: you should be able to talk to Google naturally. We are currently focusing a lot on mobile devices, because people are on the move a lot and don't want to type when they're out and about, but want to search with their voice.   

Ursina mason