Google's Second Brain: How the Knowledge Graph Changes Search 76
waderoush writes "Last spring Google introduced its English-speaking users to the Knowledge Graph, a vast semantic graph of real-world entities and properties born from the Freebase project at Metaweb Technologies (which Google acquired in 2010). This month Google began showing Knowledge Graph results to speakers of seven other languages. Though the project has received little coverage, the consequences could be as far-reaching as previous overhauls to Google's infrastructure, such as the introduction of universal search back in 2007. That's because the Knowledge Graph plugs a big hole in Google's technology: the lack of a common-sense understanding of the things in its Web index. Despite all the statistical magic that made Google's keyword-based retrieval techniques so effective, 'We didn't ever represent the real world properly in the computer,' says Google senior vice president of engineering Amit Singhal. He says the Knowledge Graph represents a 'baby step' toward future computer systems that can intuit what humans are searching for and respond with exact answers, rather than the classic ten blue links. 'Now, when you encounter encounters the letters T-A-J-M-A-H-A-L on any Web page, the computers suddenly start understanding that this document is about the monument, and this one is about the musician, and this one is about a restaurant,' Singhal says. 'That 'aboutness' is foundational to building the search of tomorrow.'"
Well played Google, now it is my move. (Score:4, Funny)
Now I counter your Artificial Intelligence with my natural stupidity. Check. Mate.
Game Over. Boing!
They do that already. (Score:5, Funny)
A few years ago, I got my hands on a vegetable that I didn't know. And I was curious what it was, but how to search for something you don't know the name of? That's something that's really tricky.
So I grabbed the vegetable, put it next to my computer, opened google.com, and typed in "what vegetable is this?", for not having any better ideas.
Lo and behold, the search results came back, including some image results, and the first images were of a fennel - exactly the vegetable that I had on the table next to me. Perfect result, couldn't be better.
Re:So it's basically Watson? (Score:4, Funny)
No, Watson was an answer engine more like Wolfram Alpha. Where this is more of adding contextual comprehension/understanding to search terms.
So this is a... question engine?
42!