The future of ambient location: hyperlocal services
Posted: Tue May 27, 2025 6:48 am
The future of Google search in a mobile world
Amit Singhal , Google's senior vice president and software engineer was interviewed by Guy Kawasaki , a former marketing man from Apple's early days.
Natural language search
According to Singhal, the biggest development in the field of search is 'Natural Language Search'. In contrast to the past, people now expect answers to questions such as: "Why does my hair make me ugly?" or "Will it rain tomorrow?" This trend is very visible in the logs of search queries that Google keeps. Influenced by the mobile web, people search in this way even more often, and you don't always have your hands free. That is why voice search is so relevant on mobile, as is Google's ability to understand "real" questions. list to data According to Singhal, that is where the big challenge lies: a search engine that is not only good at finding relevant results, but can also understand what they are about and what connections the results have with each other.
Austin Congress
Google Now
Google Now also fits well within this development. Google Now is Google's platform that can provide all kinds of knowledge that is relevant to the user depending on the context. Google Now is about traffic information, about the weather, about the question of what you can do in the area. That is the future of mobile search. Google Now provides you with things that you want to know at a certain time, at a certain place and especially depending on who you are.
Google Glass
At the end of the conversation, (searching on) Google Glass was briefly discussed. Singhal believes that searching is essential on every device. Glass gives searching a different context, for which a user interface must be developed to make searching relevant. Now it is Glass, later perhaps smart fabrics, who knows. Singhal concluded with his ultimate vision of the future: a Star Trek computer that you simply ask questions to and that answers everything. Interestingly, we are not that far away from that anymore. The future is upon us!
Google Glass
Paul Davison passionately and infectiously sketched an extremely controversial vision of the future in which personal data becomes public for the people in your immediate environment. According to Paul, there is something terribly wrong with the world: there are so many interesting people close to us that we will never meet, simply because we do not know who they are. We only see a face. And if we do know a name, we unfortunately often forget it again. As if Facebook and LinkedIn only have passport photos, without any further information. You are regularly surprised by surprising connections between you and the people around you, or by the fact that you were close to each other without knowing it. Because we have no knowledge of everyone around us, this often feels like coincidence. But is it really coincidence? Maybe it is very normal!
Amit Singhal , Google's senior vice president and software engineer was interviewed by Guy Kawasaki , a former marketing man from Apple's early days.
Natural language search
According to Singhal, the biggest development in the field of search is 'Natural Language Search'. In contrast to the past, people now expect answers to questions such as: "Why does my hair make me ugly?" or "Will it rain tomorrow?" This trend is very visible in the logs of search queries that Google keeps. Influenced by the mobile web, people search in this way even more often, and you don't always have your hands free. That is why voice search is so relevant on mobile, as is Google's ability to understand "real" questions. list to data According to Singhal, that is where the big challenge lies: a search engine that is not only good at finding relevant results, but can also understand what they are about and what connections the results have with each other.
Austin Congress
Google Now
Google Now also fits well within this development. Google Now is Google's platform that can provide all kinds of knowledge that is relevant to the user depending on the context. Google Now is about traffic information, about the weather, about the question of what you can do in the area. That is the future of mobile search. Google Now provides you with things that you want to know at a certain time, at a certain place and especially depending on who you are.
Google Glass
At the end of the conversation, (searching on) Google Glass was briefly discussed. Singhal believes that searching is essential on every device. Glass gives searching a different context, for which a user interface must be developed to make searching relevant. Now it is Glass, later perhaps smart fabrics, who knows. Singhal concluded with his ultimate vision of the future: a Star Trek computer that you simply ask questions to and that answers everything. Interestingly, we are not that far away from that anymore. The future is upon us!
Google Glass
Paul Davison passionately and infectiously sketched an extremely controversial vision of the future in which personal data becomes public for the people in your immediate environment. According to Paul, there is something terribly wrong with the world: there are so many interesting people close to us that we will never meet, simply because we do not know who they are. We only see a face. And if we do know a name, we unfortunately often forget it again. As if Facebook and LinkedIn only have passport photos, without any further information. You are regularly surprised by surprising connections between you and the people around you, or by the fact that you were close to each other without knowing it. Because we have no knowledge of everyone around us, this often feels like coincidence. But is it really coincidence? Maybe it is very normal!