Hummingbird

A new Google search algorithm? See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24292897 - the new search thing for longer queries...

But "We are at the cutting edge of language understanding"? 

We wouldn't have phrased it quite like that...

Howard Carter's Sandals

Today's Google Doodle recognises Howard Carter's birthday (his 138th!):-

... but did you know that his sandals can be found in a storeroom in the Egyptology department of the British Museum?

Lem Google Doodle

Today's Lem Google Doodle was great fun.  See what the press says about it.

Modern Major Google

OK. So Google have launched Google Instant - that prompts you with results as you type - and promoted it using Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" music video.  Very nice if you like that sort of thing.

However, a far superior use of the technology has just been pointed out to me:

Bonspiel

The other night I was talking about YouTube with a fellow trustee of a charity I help out with. My take was that YouTube had become an immensely powerful archive of much-loved TV and film (and also to a degree of radio and records). He didn't disagree - but suggested that you could get an interesting perspective on life if you changed your default search engine to YouTube for a couple of weeks.

Ever the sceptic, I tried it none the less. Given a recent post I typed "Inchmahome" into both Google and YouTube. The former, unexceptionally but as expected, returned tourist advice and guide sites, relevant Wikipedia pages and so forth.

YouTube returned this as the first hit:


With a narrative that read:-

The Lake of Menteith is Scotland`s only natural body of water named as a lake, instead of a loch.
In January 2001, during a cold spell, it froze over, raising hopes that a curling Bonspiel, or "Grand Match", could be held for the first time since 1979.
It was thick enough for people to have curling matches and walk out to the island of Inchmahome in the middle of the lake.
Sadly a thaw set in before the ice was thick and safe enough to hold the hundreds of curlers involved in the "Grand Match" between the North and South of Scotland.
Due to global warming and milder winters there may never be another outdoor Bonspiel in Scotland again, but we can live in hope!
Deep Sky Divers composed When Heaven Freezes Over after seeing the frozen lake.
The Lake of Menteith is near Aberfoyle, Scotland.

I found this ever-so-slightly astonishing. Although the video was really just a collection of stills with some music overlay, the place came alive. The reference lead serendipitously to other information, just like I always hoped search tools would. And of course the Lake seemed to have been photographed from roughly where we had stayed last Summer, which helped.

So far, therefore, a very interesting experiment.

I must try more.