Google Squared is Live

"Religion" is entertaining. Christianity is written by CS Lewis and published by the Oxford University Press, which in fact publishes most religions. The canonical image of Islam is the guy holding the sign "behead those who insult islam". Slavic mythology (the 27th result) is located in the country of Afghanistan. The distinctive image of Humanism is a bus advertisement (I think) saying "Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness' sake."<p>Adding the column "adherents" reveals that there are 4,400 Jews in the world to Islam's 300, to Christianity's 1.9 billion. Adding the column "Leader" reveals that the leader of Christianity is Chris Argabright, complete with a phone number I won't reproduce here.<p>Actually I have to admit this isn't too bad for a computer algorithm, it's just the better the algorithm gets, the more entertaining the wrongness gets.<p>Ah, and poking "science" in gives you a phone number for each science. Nice.<p>Further edit: Poke in "X-Men Origins" as a column for almost any query. It's like magic. A coworker tried something like the following and discovered the column showing up, then we couldn't resist poking it into many other queries: <a href="http://www.google.com/squared/search?q=square&#38;items=triangle&#38;items=hexagon&#38;items=regular+hexagon&#38;items=what+happens+when+I+go+to+the+gym&#38;items=rhombus" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/squared/search?q=square&#38;items=tria...</a><p>Further, further edit: Add "Rating" (not "ratings") to religion! It's so great that we have Google to sort through the difficult problem of rating religions for us.

Nice. I searched for four scenarios. Apparently, one can train the engine, as discovered in the 4th scenario. In that, it said that it couldn't automatically build a square about the topic and asked me to enter up to 5 examples. I entered Alan Turing, Alan Perlis, John McCarthy, Donald E. Knuth, C.A.R. Hoare. I was delighted to see that Google Squared built the square and added names of Norbert Weiner and Claude Shanon to it.<p>This is a good application of machine learning.<p><pre><code> Scenario 1: "renaissance artists" florence Squared: http://www.google.com/squared/search?q=%22renaissance+artists%22+florence Web Search: http://www.google.com/#hl=en&#38;q=%22renaissance+artists%22+florence&#38;btnG=Google+Search&#38;aq=f&#38;oq=%22renaissance+artists%22+florence&#38;aqi=&#38;fp=1mZ_-PL2Zjc Scenario 2: "open source" "cryptographically strong" "random number generators" Squared: http://www.google.com/squared/search?q=%22open+source%22+%22cryptographically+strong%22+%22random+number+generators%22 Web search: http://www.google.com/#hl=en&#38;q=%22open+source%22+%22cryptographically+strong%22+%22random+number+generators%22&#38;btnG=Google+Search&#38;aq=f&#38;oq=%22open+source%22+%22cryptographically+strong%22+%22random+number+generators%22&#38;aqi=&#38;fp=1mZ_-PL2Zjc Scenario 3: "string theory" problems Squared: http://www.google.com/squared/search?q=%22string+theory%22+problems Web search: http://www.google.com/#hl=en&#38;q=%22string+theory%22+problems&#38;aq=&#38;oq=&#38;aqi=&#38;fp=1mZ_-PL2Zjc Scenario 4: "mathematicians" "computer scientists" Squared: http://www.google.com/squared/search?q=mathematicians+%22computer+scientists%22 Web Search: http://www.google.com/#hl=en&#38;q=mathematicians+%22computer+scientists%22&#38;aq=f&#38;oq=%22open+source%22+%22cryptographically+strong%22+%22random+number+generators%22&#38;</code></pre>

I like that they show you the source pages, confidence, and alternative sources for the data.<p>However, it suffers the classic Google app problem; it does interesting stuff, but just looks ugly, and is generally unappealing. Hard for me to explain why, but despite my interest in the technology I just didn't enjoy using it at all.<p>But it is interesting stuff, I'd been wondering when something like this would emerge since watching this Norving talk from 2007 [<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nU8DcBF-qo4" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nU8DcBF-qo4</a>].

Once you wrapped your mind around how to use this, I can see this being really useful - perhaps even more useful than Wolfram Alpha.<p>It still gives you lots of garbage results at the moment (try a search for religion - it's hard to get relevant data when you add columns or religions), but the ability to do a structured search on a whole array of similar items at once? That's cool! With countries, although you get some obscure nations to begin with, you can add rows and columns (like GDP, population, area, etc...) very easily, and get very useful comparisons.

Is it bad that I just don't get this?

This doesn't seem to be consistent in the way it is trying to help me; for example, a search for "tympanuchus cupido" (the genus and species name of the greater prairie chicken) returns only phasianidae, the family to which prairie chickens belong. Meanwhile, a search for just "tympanuchus" (the genus, which includes more than just prairie chickens) returns Attwater's Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge, which seems only tangentially related. Terms with multiple meanings (which is precisely what structured search is supposed to help with) don't seem to recognize this multiplicity--consider a search for "peripatetic", which is both the name of a school of ancient Greek philosophy (which is recognized in the results), and a term meaning wandering or itinerant (which is not recognized, even when the search is changed to "peripatetic definition"). Even the most straightforwardly categorical queries don't seem to work that well ("dungeons and dragons classes" returns a list that is neither complete, nor correct). Speaking of neither completeness nor correctness, if you think my query choices were a little too farfetched, consider the query "search engines"--it returns none of bing, Duck Duck Go, and cuil in the first 50 results (although, somewhat entertainingly, Yahoo is the first result and Google is the second).<p>Is there something I'm missing that this engine actually does well?

Stunningly bad. Are they desparate to show they're not standing still and you shouldn't start using other services or something?<p>First thing I did, I clicked on one of their examples "US Presidents" - which one would assume would probably produce the best they've got to offer right? The result I guess would've been kind of cool circa 1999, but now.. no:<p>Google^2: <a href="http://www.google.com/squared/search?q=US%20presidents" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/squared/search?q=US%20presidents</a> Result: <i>7</i>, seemingly random presidents, in no apparent order or with rhyme or reason as to why they were selected.. Washington - OK, Jefferson - OK, Obama - Sure, he's current. Rutherford B. Hayes... WTF?<p>Wolfram Alpha: <a href="http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=us+presidents" rel="nofollow">http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=us+presidents</a> Result: Basic stats in Barack Obama - current president of the united states, a brief list of the past couple predecessors and their effective start and end months in office, and an AJAX link to expand it to a complete list.<p>Wikipedia: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Us_presidents" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Us_presidents</a> Result: --&#62; List of Presidents of the United States.. Awfully nice summary of what that means, notable highlights, and a color-coded complete table with pictures of the presidents, in order, including their full dates and vice presidents.<p>I don't foresee ever going back until I hear news they've dramatically improved, but based on my past recollection of Google's habits.. it'll sit and suck for a very long time with perhaps small incremental improvements.

<a href="http://www.google.com/squared/search?q=programming+languages" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/squared/search?q=programming+languages</a><p>Scheme comes out on top. Awesome.

My search for "freedom fighters" turned up Indians exclusively. I wasn't signed in. Strange. Are they not called "freedom fighters" in other cultures? It <i>is</i> a semantically dubious phrase.<p><a href="http://www.google.com/squared/search?q=freedom+fighters" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/squared/search?q=freedom+fighters</a>

The results rarely make any sense. This kind of thing still needs to have some human intelligence mixed in; compare to <a href="http://www.noodlesquares.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.noodlesquares.com</a>.<p><i>Search engines</i><p><a href="http://www.google.com/squared/search?q=search+engines" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/squared/search?q=search+engines</a><p><a href="http://noodlesquares.com/SearchEngines.html" rel="nofollow">http://noodlesquares.com/SearchEngines.html</a><p><i>Cameras</i><p><a href="http://www.google.com/squared/search?q=cameras" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/squared/search?q=cameras</a><p><a href="http://noodlesquares.com/Cameras.html" rel="nofollow">http://noodlesquares.com/Cameras.html</a><p>[disclaimer: associated with noodlesquares]

"Australian States" is probably the perfect query for this. result set should fit on a page, easily structured data, etc, etc..<p>Area worked for every state Population worked for some (NSW, QLD) When I added "Capital" it worked for all of them<p>I love the idea - still has a while to go

And it's really quite good: I got meaningful results on a wide range of topics of varying obscurity. A few outright failures, mostly on complex terms; eg 'california TV stations' gives me CA city information.<p>I sent my list of 12 suggestions to the labs team: highest priority were share/export to docs|base, and entering search terms or [sublist search] in individual fields. If they can make it social and create 'trusted tables' there's the possibility of having users curate a lot of data for them a la Wikipedia.

"Google Squared couldn't automatically build a Square about Hacker News."<p>That's odd. It built a square around my personal name, the name of my personal website, and the name of my nonprofit, the last of which I would think would have to be less famous than Hacker News. Richness of semantic associations appears to be key here. My nonprofit's name has more words in it.

Well, it's good for a laugh.

A few months ago I attended a talk by Alon Halevy (of Google) on the algorithms behind this. There are several papers with more details for those who are curious. Check his publications listed at <a href="http://alonhalevy.googlepages.com/" rel="nofollow">http://alonhalevy.googlepages.com/</a>, specifically those about WebTables and dataspaces.

"Porn stars" is resultful, but not in any order of notoriety. "Measurements" is, surprisingly, an available column, and "Sexual Orientation" worked, although not suggested until I started typing it. (I wouldn't recommend searching for this at work, obviously, although the Image column seems to be keeping things PG-13.)

Seems pretty useless right now as far as the actual data is concerned, but I like the interface and the idea.

This reminded me of Google Sets, which has been in Labs forever: <a href="http://labs.google.com/sets" rel="nofollow">http://labs.google.com/sets</a><p>Sure enough, if you ask it to build a Square and it can't figure it out, it uses a Sets-like interface to ask you for five examples.

Interesting. Try starting with an empty square. Add a few items, and then add a few custom columns.

It took me a while to figure out what I wasn't seeing on these results pages.<p>SEO spam.<p>So I searched for "SEO spam" and it asked me to build a Square for it. No thanks &#62;:(

Needs some work: <a href="http://www.google.com/squared/search?q=famous+hackers" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/squared/search?q=famous+hackers</a>

Searching for "java xml binding frameworks" says that XMLBeans is required. I guess the other frameworks just aren't worth using. :-D

No damn VIM in "text editors", infuriating.

'Squirrel' returns a good search square, but no red or grey squirrels.

fail: <a href="http://www.google.com/squared/search?q=programming+languages" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/squared/search?q=programming+languages</a>