Along with Google Chrome update, new search tools amp up Google capabilities yet again
Google
announced Friday afternoon two cool new search features that should make searching a whole lot easier.
The first is the implementation of universal search features into Google Suggest. Universal search draws from various sources--maps, business information, weather forecasts--so that a user may see the exact information he or she was searching for without even having to leave the Google results page. Now, with the addition of those same universal search features into Google Suggest, users may sometimes never have to even perform the search at all.
For example, typing "capital of belgiu" will immediately return "Brussels" and, similarly, "weather brus" will instantly display a weather forecast for Brussels:
While Google plans to add additional features later, right now universal search in Google Suggest already works with the following queries: weather, flight status, local time, area codes, package tracking, answers, definitions, calculator, currency and unit conversions.
The second update will only benefit Google Chrome users as it is an extension designed specifically for that browser. While the universal search in Google Suggest is supposed to help users find what they're looking for before getting to the results page, this new extension, Quick Scroll, takes care of the opposite end, when a user has clicked through a results page link.
Once there, users can sometimes have a hard time finding exactly the part of the page that contained their search query. Google Quick Scroll will automatically display a black box in the bottom right hand corner which includes a selection of text relevant to the query. Upon clicking the box, the page scrolls down to the selected text.
Among all the exciting announcements made by Google this week, these might sound the least exciting, but they could prove to be the most useful. Google knows what it does best (search), and is constantly trying to make it even better.
Steven Loeb
