Official Web Master Blog

After the instant results for definitions and local time, Google's translation OneBox has a new card-style interface inspired by Google Now.

To trigger this OneBox, search for "translate", followed by the text you want to translate. For example: [translate mein luftkissenfahrzeug ist voller aale]. You could also add the destination language: [translate mein luftkissenfahrzeug ist voller aale into french].


You can also search for [word in language] or [word to language]. For example: [breakfast in Spanish], [estrella to English]. This also works for short phrases and expressions.


{ Thanks, Arpit. }

Google updated the weather OneBox from the desktop search interface to match the tablet interface. The new OneBox is huge, it includes more information and it's more interactive. While the old OneBox only displayed the weather forecast for 4 days, the new one has an hourly and an 8-day forecast for temperature, precipitation and wind.


Here's the old interface (I've managed to take this screenshot by pretending I'm using IE7 and changing the user-agent):



It's interesting that many search features are first added to the mobile/tablet interface and a few months later to the desktop UI.

{ Thanks, Mikhail. }

The old Google Image Search interface is still available in the OneBox result that's displayed for some Google searches like [tropical birds] or [europe map]. If you add "image", "images", "photo" or "photos" to your query, Google will show 4 times more image results. It's like a simplified image search interface inside the regular Google Search.

Google updated the desktop OneBoxes for definitions and local time to match the card layout from Google Now. The same layout is also used in the mobile search UI for most Google OneBoxes.



What's unique about the cards? They're much bigger, they include a lot more information, more white space and more distinctive headers. They stand out more and they're harder to ignore.

{ Thanks, Milivella, Arpit, Mikhail. }

Google's OneBoxes start to become interactive gadgets. After launching a new mobile weather OneBox and an updated unit conversion OneBox, it's time for Google Calculator to morph into a calculator app.

Just type a query like [73-45] in the search box and you'll get more than just the result. Google also displays a mini-calculator with real buttons for digits, parentheses, arithmetic operations, trigonometric functions, exponential and logarithmic functions.


It's certainly more efficient to just type the expression you want to calculate, but some people might prefer the traditional buttons. They can search for [calculator] and use the new Google Calculator interface.

It's worth noting that Google's calculator doesn't mimic a standard pocket calculator: you can enter a long expression with multiple operations and Google doesn't display the result until you press the "=" button. This way, you can enter "3+3*3" and still get the proper result. Another thing to keep in mind is that you can't press the "1" button and then the "sin" button to compute sin(1), you should press the "sin" button first and then enter the argument of the function. There's no persistent "clear" button, but you can long-press the "delete" button.

{ Thanks, James. }

Google has a new tablet interface for the weather OneBox. It now looks more like an application and it includes more information: precipitation, humidity, wind speed, hourly weather forecast, 10-day forecast. The OneBox is interactive and you can select an hour or a day to see the forecast.

"When you type [weather] into Google on your tablet, you'll see the current weather and you can scroll through the hourly and ten-day forecast. You can also toggle the Precipitation and Wind buttons to check out the percent chance of precipitation and wind direction/speed, respectively," informs Google. It should work for iPad and Android tablets.




Ironically, the desktop weather OneBox has less information than the mobile OneBox (both the smartphone interface and the tablet interface). The smartphone UI was more colorful, but now it looks just like the tablet OneBox. Sure, it's more likely that you'll need weather information when you use a mobile device, but the desktop interface used to be richer and more comprehensive.



{ via Search Engine Roundtable }

Google updated the unit conversion OneBox and this time it's interactive. For example, you can search for [10 pounds in kg], get the result and quickly change the number of pounds or kilograms directly from the OneBox. You can also select a different unit of measurement from the list: metric ton, gram, stone, ounce.



Google's gadget even lets you change the conversion type and switch to a different category: speed, length, temperature, volume, area, fuel consumption, time or digital storage. The gadget is only displayed for common measurement units, so you'll still see the old interface when you search for [10 pascals to Torr] or [2 radians to degrees].


Now you no longer need iGoogle's metric conversion gadget.


{ Thanks, Diego. }

As previously anticipated, Google introduced Knowledge Graph, a new way to handle queries that replaces keywords with objects. It's like replacing a dictionary with an encyclopedia.

"The Knowledge Graph enables you to search for things, people or places that Google knows about—landmarks, celebrities, cities, sports teams, buildings, geographical features, movies, celestial objects, works of art and more—and instantly get information that's relevant to your query. This is a critical first step towards building the next generation of search, which taps into the collective intelligence of the web and understands the world a bit more like people do," explains Google.

For now, you'll only notice a new info pane in the right sidebar that shows more information about your query. Google's graph has 500 million objects and 3.5 billion facts, so you'll see the new section quite often. Google shows a small thumbnail, a snippet from a Wikipedia article, a few relevant facts and some related queries. It's just like a Wikipedia infobox automatically generated using data from the Web and that's smart enough to only show important facts and hide the things people won't need.


The new info panes will also help users disambiguate queries just like Wikipedia's disambiguation pages help users find the right articles.


Wikipedia's internal links help you find other interesting articles. Google also adds links to all the other objects from the graph.

Some may say that Google borrowed too many ideas from Wikipedia, but that's one step that could help search engines evolve. Understanding the relation between entities and learning their attributes allows Google to answer more complicated questions and get better search results. As Mashable says, "the transition from a word-based index to this knowledge graph is a fundamental shift that will radically increase power and complexity."

Google "begun to gradually roll out this view of the Knowledge Graph to U.S. English users. It's also going to be available on smartphones and tablets". If you don't see the new features yet, check back later.


{ Thanks, David. }

Google's OneBox for instant answers has a new interface that emphasizes the results. Google now displays the answer on the first line and the font size is bigger.



The Q&A OneBox now shows multiple answers for questions like [What is the cast of The Help?] or queries like [the dictator actors].




Until now, Google used the following template: "Best guess for ... is ...".


Just because Google no longer mentions that the answer is a "guess" doesn't mean that it's always accurate.

Last year, Google started to test a new sidebar that offers useful information about your query. As the Wall Street Journal mentioned in a recent article, Google will soon "present more facts and direct answers to queries at the top of the search-results page". There's a large database of entities and each one has a list of relevant attributes.

For example, you could search for [California] and Google displays the capital of the US state, a list of important cities, attractions, the Secretary of State, a map and a snippet from Wikipedia. Google continues to test the info panes, but the interface has been updated, the main thumbnail is smaller and there's more information that's displayed. For singers, Google displays a long list of songs and some important albums.





Google's experimental sidebar is similar to Wikipedia's infobox, "a fixed-format table designed to be added to the top right-hand corner of articles to consistently present a summary of some unifying aspect that the articles share and sometimes to improve navigation to other interrelated articles". It includes structured information about your query, related queries and links to all the topics that are mentioned. Google will look more like an encyclopedia.

{ Thanks, Anirban. }

Now you no longer need to use Wolfram Alpha to plot Math graphs. Google shows an interactive graph when you search for a Math function or a list of functions separated by commas. "You can zoom in and out and pan across the plane to explore the function in more detail. This feature covers an extensive range of single variable functions including trigonometric, exponential, logarithmic and their compositions, and is available in modern browsers," explains Google.

For example, you can search for [sin(x)/x, 1/x^2] to see this beautiful SVG graph.


You can also search for [sin(x) from -pi to pi] or add extraneous words like "plot", "graph" to the query (example: [graph ln(x)]).


{ Thanks, Arpit. }

Google updated the interface of the Dictionary OneBox and added synonyms. They were already available if you clicked "more info" to see the entire list of definitions, but synonyms are useful enough to be displayed in the OneBox.


Another change is that the OneBox includes more definitions for each part of speech:


To trigger the Dictionary OneBox, search for [define word] or [word definition]. In some cases, Google shows the OneBox even if you don't include "define" or "definition". For example, if you search for [obnubilate], Google will show the definitions because it's likely that they're useful for many people.

{ Thanks, Bora and Venkat. }