Google Labs Launches New Functions

One of the elements that microblogging sites like Twitter have had over search engines like Google is the ability to perform real time searches. Perhaps Google had this in mind when it launched its new Google News Timeline for Google Labs. How does the Google News Timeline work? Google News Timeline lays out the top stories from Google News chronologically. Users can scroll through different dates, as well as search for specific topics. Nevertheless, the timeline still falls short of a real-time search function, as the options users have relevant to time are limited to day, week, month, year, or decade—not within the hour or minute. Although the real-time news updates might still be in the works, The Google Timeline does a good job of letting users customize their results. If logged in, users can delete a certain news source and save their preferences.

Another recent launch in Google Labs is Google Similar Images. Tech Crunch states that, “when you search for an image and find one close to what you’re looking for, Google can now find ones that it believes to be the same, or similar”. Similar Images can also filter out results that users might not be looking for. Will users respond well to the new features? How can Google improve them?