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...the voice of pensioners

Google knows all

15 Aug 2017

As EW says, it could appear that Google knows all.   It is now recognised as a verb in its own right (►►►).   But perhaps it is more accurate to say that the search engine appears to be able to find information on nearly every subject that you challenge it with.  Not that long ago all one had to do is type a couple of words in the appropriate box to prompt the internet to offer at least some very basic information about nearly any subject, but now it is even easier.  The advances in computer speech recognition appear to have crept up on us over the past few years, but research actually started many years ago.

 

I suppose it can all be perceived as a gimmick but, recently I found myself between cars, at which point, being able to have a quite word with my phone helped me enormously when it came to finding out the quickest way to get from one place to another.  The only words I had to whisper to my mobile phone were those that described the route number of the bus I was travelling on, and one click later my mobile screen had full details of where the bus terminated and a full list, in order, of all the bus stop names.  Google did not supply that information but it knew that I needed to go to the Transport for London web page, and I had barely finished my sentence before it was able to tell me where I could find it. 

 

 So perhaps it is more correct to say that Google knows where to start looking online for everything, and you don't even have to type anymore.  That is a feat in itself.