INSTANT

For my first blog I decided to pick a topic from the news, something that was recently introduced to us, another small but significant change in our everyday life.

This week Google launched the "Google Instant", a new feature that gives search results as you type. The results change as you keep typing and the search box gives you a prediction of what you're looking for, in grey letters. The idea came from the fact that people type slowly but read fast, and Google wants to help us find the info we're looking for as fast as possible. By using "Google Instant" the search time decreases by 2-4 seconds per search. Seems like a pretty small and insignificant change, but just think for a moment how much time of your day you spend searching the internet, working, studying, playing, etc.

Many people found this search method rather distracting, for they know what they are looking for when typing it. Furthermore, inappropriate content, such as pornography or violence that can easily pop up inadvertently while typing, was a disturbing fact. These concerns were predicted by Google beforehand. For the distraction issue, the user can delete the instant search application. In addition, the old search method remains the same, and so do the results. For the second argument, Google users can add the "Safe-Search" set in order to filter the content. On this matter they announced that auto-complete text will exclude those words automatically.    

I find it amazing that still there are more holes to fill, more needs we have that we didn’t even know about. Again, technology proves us that our lives can be better, faster and easier. Internet has become, whether we like it or not, the center of our business and social life. In that sense, we need the best tool in order to find our way through the web spending as little time as possible.