Search

When we were kids, I had this big fat General Knowledge book, which was a magnet for all my cousins, because it had so many cool pictures and bits of information that helped in many a science project in school. Tinkle and Reader's Digest were two other sources of information. When I was doing engineering, my first "application" was a Foxpro database that allowed me to "search" for information, and the application returned the month and year of the magazine that contained relevant articles. Yes, it took a lot of data entry, but it was truly amazing to be able to peek into those dozens of magazines as needed.

When I studied engineering, we did not have access to Internet in Goa - the nearest VSNL node was in Mumbai, and that meant a dial up cost of Rs 20 per minute, just to access the node. Google wasn't born yet. All we had were big fat text books, an outdated library, and notes from students of the past.

In 1996, when I entered IIT B for my masters, I was exposed to the vast caverns of periodicals and journals, and suddenly information was aplenty. A typical evening saw me in the caverns, hunting for articles and reports from journals in long, dark, dewy corridors, and then photocopying them (on our own) on the library machines. I still have a big suitcase of articles and reports I used in my 18 months there.

We were still not exposed to Google, and had very limited use for the Internet.

It was here in Pune, when I joined work, that we found Google. First, it was to search for relevant articles and APIs. Over time, we got spoilt - from world times to movie shows, from pictures of our favorite actresses to crazy videos, Google became a source for everything. It was amazing how it never said no!

Over the last few months, the whole Search business has moved into personalization. Finding stuff is cool, but the real challenge now is, can you find me things that my social network is also interested in? Just Dial is banking heavily on that model, and so are the dozens of "recommendation and review" sites.

Google Goggles is another technology that is bound to make the whole experience of searching and finding information just so different, so powerful, so crazy. Imagine you walk around wearing a Google Goggle and as you look around, out pop titbits of information - you can recognize people's faces, you know what offices are in that building, you even know what ingredients were used in that dish! You watch cricket, and lo, you have all the stats you ever need in your HUD.

Yes, it is pretty scary, especially for those of us who know how it can be misused, but, wow, the way it will change how we live - truly mind blowing!