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WILL Google soon be foretelling your every desire? That鈥檚 the future heralded by the company鈥檚 new search tool Google Instant, which delivers results even before you鈥檝e finished typing a query.
Google Instant, which launched last week, takes auto-complete to a new level: as you type into Google鈥檚 search field, a list of results appears for the query Google thinks you want to make 鈥� in other words, for the matching search that is most popular or statistically likely. Google鈥檚 servers manage the increased load this requires by pooling resources to avoid repeating similar searches.
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Other search engines are exploring more subtle improvements. For example, Yahoo Research in Barcelona, Spain, has shown that taking a user鈥檚 age or sex into account allows more appropriate search results to be delivered.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal last month, Google CEO Eric Schmidt described an even bolder vision: to provide what you want even before you ask, drawing on your social networks, past behaviour, location and so on. 鈥淢ost people don鈥檛 want Google to answer their questions,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hey want Google to tell them what they should be doing next.鈥�
