Google search engine beefed up to enhance mobile and introduction of real-time results

Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley today was the venue for Google’s event to talk about search and how it has evolved with the change in technology. As devices used to search get smarter and as the content on the internet includes more than just web pages, and digital media like images, blog posts and video – search engine giants like Google need to adjust.

At this event Google talked about different tools that are coming on-board, some cool and some entirely not. Some of the cool tools include: voice-search, image search and on the fly translation. Specifically, the company used Android and iPhone devices to highlight what’s coming.

This event was a set-up for the big news announcement that is the real-time search. (Techmeme), this is a very cool enhancement that makes search much richer. In a demo, the company typed a search for “Obama” and came back with a number of results – the usual expected results but within the results is a real-time stream, that scrolls with the most up to date results from blogs being posted, tweets being sent, news articles being published. for a better understanding of this take a look at the video at the bottom of this post.

In addition to these new changes there is a new link being added to the results page, called “Latest” – that offers blog posts that were posted seconds ago, and another called “Updates,” which incorporates things like tweets, stuff that’s being said right now.

Another great thing is that it works for mobile devices, which is expected with the company’s acquisition of AdMob. It will work with Google Android and iPhone devices for now.

For mobile devices the company also announced support for voice search in Japanese, joining English and Mandarin. If you have been using Google Labs in your Gmail account then you have met Google Goggles which is a visual search feature that allows users to use the camera of a phone and find information about it, whether a building, a logo, a book cover or more. (Techmeme)

Also see: Google’s favorite places: Now with window sticker bar codes

Google also highlighted location-based Google Suggest upgrades, which populates queries based on where you are. For instance, starting a query with “Na” while you’re in Kenya and the first result will of course be Nairobi.

“What’s Nearby”, is a very handy feature in mobile maps will help users find infrastructures nearby a your current location. For example, if you’re in a strange town and maybe looking for something nearby while waiting for a meeting to start, there’s a button for locating businesses – maybe a coffee shop, ATM or a bar.

Finally, with the new enhancements the company also announced new partnerships with Facebook, which will feed updates from public Facebook pages, and MySpace, which will feed updates from any member who makes his or her profiles public.

Some of the changes/improvements the company talked about are live now, others will be rolled out in the coming days and some will be rolled out early next year.

The event hostess – Marissa Mayer, Google’s VP of Search Products and User Experience, spoke about the importance of search evolution – growing beyond URLs and adding in things like images, video and so on.  But Mayer says the future of search is even bigger than that. The technology is smart enough to go beyond a few keywords typed into a box – especially in a mobile setting.

A device’s microphone becomes the ear of the Internet, the speaker is its voice and the camera becomes its eye while GPS tells the search engine where we are at any given moment, making all of these tools even better.

Google is compiling more and more information about us – not just as we surf but also while we’re mobile. And maybe if paranoia sets in, you might be freaked out about that. Me, I see this as a way of making my online life better by tapping more information which will save my time by giving me information I need when I want it and where I want it.