Google Now: behind the predictive future of search

[digital.l0gic]

This verge article does a great job of giving a behind the scenes look of what "Google Now" does in android 4.2, and the path it is taking towards the future. I believe that its very possible to claim that "Google Now" is probably the first commercial/consumer application of AI(albeit in a very young,but growing) form.

Unlike other companies which do voice recognition based on non-AI approaches, Apparently Google has gotten rid of the usual old methods and transitioned entirely into a "Neural Networks"(AI) based implementation. Not only does this process the voice recognition much more effectively and accurately, but also learns as it's used more and more.

The "Knowledge Graph" is yet another Google endeavor which ties in directly with Google Now,bringing in the future of search. Imho Google's new approach is an order of magnitude ahead of the competitors, who are still trying(albeit unsuccessfully) to even come close to Google's previous generation search/big data results.

"Google Now" effectively ties in all of Google's services. Add the recent information that Google is trialing "same day delivery" in San Francisco...Gigabit internet in Kansas city....self driving cars...Google Glasses...and 10 years from now we will see a Google which would probably be the most seamlessly connected company/service in the world.


Here is the link to the video
http://youtu.be/ZXtudZl5mzM

The Google that you're interacting with in Google Now is very different than the Google you used even a year ago. The company's products have often felt fragmented, serving small niches and launched without feeling fully thought-through — and then in too many cases simply killed off. That may have been a function of the fact that Google is so large and does so much — but Google Now is a sign that all the different parts of Google are finally working together in a cohesive way.

"Google Now actually started as a twenty percent project," Barra told us. Google famously encourages its employees to work on "side projects" for some portion of their time, and what's interesting about Google Now is that although it started two years ago as one of these side projects, it's become a catalyst for integrating so many different parts of Google. Barra tells us that “we literally have dozens of teams working with us right now,” and the achievement with Google Now is that it feels like those teams are integrated, not fragmented.

In a single app, the company has combined its latest technologies: voice search that understands speech like a human brain, knowledge of real-world entities, a (somewhat creepy) understanding of who and where you are, and most of all its expertise at ranking information. Google has taken all of that and turned it into an interesting and sometimes useful feature, but if you look closely you can see that it's more than just a feature, it's a beta test for the future.

Read more here
http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/29/3569684/google-now-android-4-2-knowledge-graph-neural-networks