Google Sqared : Getting search to be multi-dimensional

I'm not sure if people have watched the announcement or realized the value / potential of Google's new release of search - Google squared. I was pleasantly surprised to see that this now has a few features that I've always wanted and had some individuals do a bit of development on the side to evaluate the APIs.

Here is a quick recap of the press release "Google Squared does not provide a list of links to Web pages, like with a traditional Google search, but presents information derived from a query in a spreadsheet-like grid called a "square." Users of google.com/squared can then build, modify and refine their "square" through further Web searches. Unlike a normal search engine

, Google Squared doesn't find webpages about your topic -- instead, it automatically fetches and organizes facts from across the Internet"

The press release may sound confusing, however, here is an example that I ran. I did a google square on the word "coke" - which threw up a series of results in a grid - ie. rows + columns.

I then tweaked what I wanted to see in rows and what I wanted to see in columns.
Next, I added "Pepsi" to the sqare to generate a new set.

The kinds of things I added was "Started from" which told me when a particular product like Coke Cherry was launched. This still has a way to go - simply because you'll see that the "Sales" did not return anything significant.


Now - I'm sure someone is going to ask me about Microsoft Bing - Have I used it ?
NO, and I'll wait till the buzz dies down atleast .....

The 10K Marathon in Bangalore :Great participation

I've been off my blog for a couple of weeks - I guess it is the writer's block !.
Not that there has been a shortage of topics to comment upon - we've had the new government and Congress's landslide (of sorts) victory. Then, there has been the racial outrage in Australia not to mention the earlier SriLankan victory over the TTs......

More importantly, I guess, there was a certain level of weariness that had set in and I needed something that'd help me get over my writers' block. That boost came in yesterday with the Sunfeast 10 K run. The surprise at the participation as indeed pleasant.

It was wonderful to see so many people participating in the various "run" categories - I was running with my daughters and was in the Majaa run. We actually joined up the 10 K open category at it's finishing stage and then did the Majaa run.

There certainly was a lot of colour and gaiety. I understand the organizers lost count at the 23000 mark on participation and I was also witness to dozens of "un-registered" runners, in the race just for the fun of participation.

I saw whole groups of people - from NGOs, from Corporates, batchmates from a college etc, chatting and in a jovial mood that the run itself seemed a very pleasant and relaxed event. The camaraderie was certainly visible in all their faces.