If you ask it who wrote Pride and Prejudice, you get:
Jane Austen
Property: The author of Pride and Prejudice.
That 'property' tag is kinda weird. I wonder what other sorts of properties exist? Or, for that matter, how this thing is automated? Does Google have a stored bunch of categories somewhere? Did they create the categories by hand and then have a program trawl the web to gather info on them? posted by painquale at 3:04 PM on April 7, 2005
This works in normal Google search. Either via it eliminating the irrelevant words in your question, or by returning results where people have asked the same question as you and more often than not received some sort of answer. posted by fire&wings at 3:13 PM on April 7, 2005
Some of you seem to be misunderstanding what this thing is doing. It's not just returning a list of relevant results; it's giving you the answer you're asking for right at the top of the Google page itself. Pluggin in just 'Maimonides' doesn't work: you have to ask it 'Who was Maimonides?'
That Tootsie Pop thing rules. I was trying to think of funny pop-culture questions (Who is Keyser Soze? What is the Matrix?) But couldn't get any to yield a response. posted by painquale at 3:33 PM on April 7, 2005
I don't see any answers. posted by Jairus at 3:45 PM on April 7, 2005
I don't see any answers.
Sorry for the bad phrasing. There are in fact no answers for the windbreaker question. My bad. But adding quotes gives these two results. posted by Fat Guy at 3:48 PM on April 7, 2005
It got "how long is the tour de france?" but not "how long is the nile?" or "how many miles is the tour de france?"
(It wouldn't give me direct answers for "What is Jeopardy?", "Where's Waldo?" and "Who wrote the Book of Love?") posted by wendell at 3:55 PM on April 7, 2005
You just know there's someone at google think of questions people might ask, I want to be that person. posted by drezdn at 3:56 PM on April 7, 2005
I guess they don't know, either posted by davejay at 4:07 PM on April 7, 2005
It works for Jason and not Matt? Aghhhh.
Indeed. Clearly Matt had better follow this Jason Kottke's lead and get busy writing his autobiographical Wikipedia entry in the royal narcissistic third person!
Google says:"Who" (etc.) is a very common word and was not included in your search, but you'll get slightly different results if you search without the "Who". So Google uses the "Who" for the question search algorithm, but doesn't bring it up in the results. posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 4:47 PM on April 7, 2005
What is Google?
Zilch.
It gave a web specific definition, the picture of the dictionary, unlike,
Who put the bop in the bop-shoo-bop-shoo-bop?
It threw me too when I first tried it. Seeing property or the picture of the dictionary was when I knew it was working for a search. posted by thomcatspike at 5:08 PM on April 7, 2005
Nothing, and good thing - I'm only on season two of the series! posted by Boydrop at 5:18 PM on April 7, 2005
This is the primary future of IT.
Well it was supposed to be in the 80s that AI took off, but I can't see why the best & brightest won't be able to adequately solve the problem of language < -> machine < -> knowledge in the next 10-20 years.
TBL is working on that 'semantic web' idea, it's a start but I think the good folks at google or Microsoft Research are going to be able to develop a clustering/automatic approach to it.
Truly a fascinating field, wish I could go back to school and get my MS/PhD in this. So very challenging, yet the payoffs are more immense than even the web IMV. posted by Heywood Mogroot at 5:18 PM on April 7, 2005
the picture of the dictionary
Wait, maybe I miss-interrupted the dictionary icon wrong as being Google’s answer. I just noticed it lately when asking Google a question and the search finding the question’s answer. posted by thomcatspike at 5:20 PM on April 7, 2005
Kudos for the Monty Python reference high in the results, but overall, a failing grade for not answering "42." posted by BoringPostcards at 6:08 PM on April 7, 2005
BoringPostcards, you have your pop references wrong. 42 isn't the meaning of life. Check chipr's post. However, I love that the answer to life, the universe and everything actually uses the Google calculator, not the new answer thing.
Another Google-related question it doesn't know the answer to:
I wouldn't be surprised if Google got a lot of "questions," written in grammatical English and all, before this feature was added. There are still a lot of people who think computers are magic, or at least don't know how else to treat them.
... and, thanks to Google, it's beginning to look like they have the right idea.
My findings: Google can tell you who got the Oscar, but it can't tell you how to mix a drink (and a fairly obvious one at that). See, it should ask me, so it'll know next time!
I asked what time it is. No answer, but a News result informed me that the U. S. Congress is considering extending daylight savings time a month in either direction, as a conservation policy. I expect this to start happening every year or so -- we'll make the sun shine at ten minutes to midnight...
Four million hits, but the results on the top on the first page are excellent. Even a news result: "Better Desktop Search Arrives - Forbes - Apr 6, 2005". Then look at the image hits. The graph for hit #2 is now outdated, but is relevant to the question if asked two years ago. posted by PlanoTX at 9:44 PM on April 7, 2005
ouchitburns, me neither for a lot of these - I'm in New Zealand and usually redirected to google.co.nz which only returns standard results. But for some of these posted searches (e.g. What atomic number is boron?, Where is the grand canyon?) I stay on google.com and can view the answers. I'm not sure what factor in these searches determines google.com/google.co.nz. posted by Pigpen at 3:05 AM on April 8, 2005
I keep getting redirected to google.co.uk and not getting any answers. How do I get Google to stop deciding what I want to look at for me? posted by Orange Goblin at 4:06 AM on April 8, 2005
According to Inside Google, MSN and Jeeves have had this feature for a while; they're just playing catch up with the others. posted by TheDonF at 9:33 AM on April 8, 2005
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The following words are very common and were not included in your search: What is the of.
posted by hackly_fracture at 2:53 PM on April 7, 2005