In the coming months, Google will begin to activate a new functionality in its search engine, dubbed “semantic search.” Search results will yield facts and answers instead of just links, changes amounting to “the biggest in the company’s history,” according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
For instance, a search for “Lake Tahoe” will return details such as location, altitude, and average temperature—a veritable in-search Wikipedia, if you will—in addition to the standard popular websites containing the search term.
Other search engine start-ups have already begun to do this, going as far as generating new perspectives ahead of simply links and facts. But with Google’s clout, they just might do it better than anyone else.
[via Engadget]
