Google Adding Improvement To Related Image Searches

Google is bringing an improvement to their image search function. Spoiler: It’s a really good improvement.

Peter Linsley, product manager for Google, detailed today on the official Google blog the change coming to image search over the next few weeks.

Linsley reminds everybody about the related search links in blue that dot the top of every image search. If you were too busy trying to find that one hilarious picture of a cat, you may have missed them. Incidentally, they may have helped you find that lolcat faster as the point is to refine your search results with other commonly searched terms.

When clicking on the related search links before, you were stuck not knowing what images may pop up until you reach the next page. The improvement makes that little problem a thing of the past. Whenever you hover your mouse over one of the related search links, a small panel will pop up showing the first few image results from that search.

Linsley uses the example of searching for Greece and then hovering over the related search for Santorini, Greece. This will allow any would be tourists to confirm if that is the search they want without having to go to the actual page.

The improvement should really quicken the pace whenever you’re looking for funny pictures of cats. I know that typing in “lolcats” doesn’t always give you what you may want. With this new feature, it should make it easier to find the very specific “lolcats computer” pictures.

Source: http://www.webpronews.com/google-image-search-2012-02

Google Is Onboard For More Internet Simplicity

The white House has introduced a newonline privacy protection bill. The bill aims to give consumers a broader understanding of how their privacy can be protected and also give them the tools to do it. While some believe the recent government interest in online privacy may have been spurred on by Google’s recent announcement of a new unified privacy policy, Google themselves have come foreword to welcome the bill and pledge their support (Perhaps in an effort to save face after the backlash their new policies created).

Here are a few segments from Google’s Public Policy Blog posted by Susan Wojcicki, SVP, Advertising:

“There’s been a lot of debate over the last few years about personalization on the web. We believe that tailoring your web experience — for example by showing you more relevant, interest-based ads, or making it easy to recommend stuff you like to friends — is a good thing. We also believe that the best way to protect your privacy is to enable you to exercise choice through meaningful product controls. That said, given the number of different browsers and products available online today — many of which have different privacy controls — we recognize that it can get confusing.”

“So we’re pleased to sign up to today’s industry-wide agreement (you can read the details here) — put together by the White House, the Federal Trade Commission and the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA), which represents over 90 percent of all online advertising in the U.S — to create a simpler, more unified approach to privacy on the web.”

“We look forward to working with our industry partners, the White House, the FTC, the DAA and all the major browsers including Google Chrome, to adopt a broadly consistent approach to these controls — rather than the situation today where every browser sets its own defaults, policies, and exceptions. In particular, we are pleased that today’s agreement will ensure that users are given an explicit choice, and be fully informed of the available options.”

It is not clear if this changes anything for Google who was all set to roll out their new policies early in March.I look forward to seeing what else comes out of this new privacy protection bill from the White House. Google and Wojcicki leave us with these words about the bill:

“This agreement will not solve all the privacy issues users face on the web today. However, it represents a meaningful step forward in privacy controls for users. We look forward to making this happen.”

Source: http://www.webpronews.com/google-is-onboard-for-more-internet-simplicity-2012-02