Google Squared unveiled

Google has unveiled further details of its Google Squared fact-gathering search engine, first announced at the Searchology event last month.

Thursday, 4 June 2009

The experimental engine collects factual information from around the web and displays them in a way similar to a spreadsheet, with data placed in its own row and column.

For example, a search for 'roller coasters' will see the search engine build a "square" that includes rows for specific roller coasters and columns of data such as height and speed for each one, together with the sources they came from.

Users can add or remove rows and columns as they see fit to give Google Squared further detail on the exact type of information they are looking for.

It will then automatically fill in these user-added rows and columns and suggest new ones to be added.

"While gathering facts from across the internet is relatively easy - albeit tedious - for humans to do, it's far more difficult for computers to do automatically," says Alex Komoroske, associate product manager for Google Squared.

"Google Squared is a first step towards solving that challenge."

The announcement comes shortly after the launch of Wolfram Alpha, a search engine that also retrieves facts and figures from the web and can work out equations, and Microsoft's Bing decision engine.

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