Google Adds Real-Time Search Capabilities

December 07, 2009, 05:18 PM EST

The announcements were made Monday in an event at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif., near Google's headquarters.

The new real-time capabilities add a "dynamic stream of content from across the Web," according to a Google blog post by Google Fellow Amit Singhal, who introduced the new features at the museum. Immediately after conducting a search, a user can see live updates to the search from sites such as Twitter and FriendFeed, headlines from news sites, and blog posts.

Searching on something like "climate change," for example, and then clicking on "latest results" will add new items that have just been posted to the Web. Along with desktop devices the new feature will be available for iPhones and Android devices. Also, a new "Hot Topics" feature added to Google Trends displays the most common topics people are publishing to the Web in real-time.

Singhal said the new real-time capability is based on "a dozen new search technologies" and algorithms that let Google monitor more than a billion documents and process millions of real-time changes each day.

On the mobile side, users can search using voice, location and sight using a mobile device. At the event at the museum Google execs demonstrated Google Goggles that lets users search for objects using images, rather than words, through a mobile phone camera.

Rick Whiting

Rick Whiting has been with CRN since 2006 and is currently a feature/special projects editor. Whiting manages a number of CRN’s signature annual editorial projects including Channel Chiefs, Partner Program Guide, Big Data 100, Emerging Vendors, Tech Innovators and Products of the Year. He also covers the Big Data beat for CRN. He can be reached at rwhiting@thechannelcompany.com.