Google testing two new services
Jinfo Blog

23rd April 2009

By Diana Nutting

Item

Google has launched into Google Labs two services, one for searching images and the other news, called respectively Similar Images http://similar-images.googlelabs.com and News Timeline http://newstimeline.googlelabs.com . The former, as the name would imply, gives users the option of clicking on an image in order to narrow a search to similar pictures; the latter organizes results in news searches by timeline. In Similar Images, when you type in the word, you will get pictures of the car and the animal, and probably some fairly unexpected things as well. By clicking on the image that is the nearest to what you want, you will find more pictures of that thing. Though I have to say when I looked for similar images to a black jaguar animal, as well as black jaguars I got a tabby kitten, an elephant and a sheep. The search technology used is apparently not based on optical recognition, but on Google metadata attached to the pictures in its database. News Timeline organizes search results within a time span that can be displayed by the day, week, month, year, or decade. You enter a keyword to search news, news quotes, blogs, newspapers, magazines, photos, Wikipedia and video. If Google has a partnership with the publication, then users can see all the content within a magazine or newspaper. If not, then the user is taken to the publication's Web site. Google claims that the information is then organised chronologically, which can be very useful for information professionals looking for specific information. The arrangement of results by column dates is attractive to use and if this service goes live it could prove very useful. At the same time Google has moved its Labs to a new site http://www.googlelabs.com/ , which offers users the option of providing feedback to Google engineers on their projects and to rate individual services. The site also includes profiles of the engineers.

« Blog