Google Images: faster, more reliable and lets the images do the talking

When you’re looking for images, chances are you want to check out more than just one. So we’ve redesigned Google Images to make it easier to move through a series of images -- it’s now faster, more reliable and lets the images do the talking.



Instead of sending you over to a whole new page to preview an image, you’ll see a preview of the image in your search results. Once you click on an image, you can quickly flip through the whole set of image previews using your keyboard. Your search results stay in the panel so you don’t lose track of what you were doing; if you want to go back to looking at other search results, you can just scroll down and pick up right where you left off. If you want to check out the website where the image is hosted, you can click on the photo or use the tools available.

The new design is rolling out worldwide over the next few days. Google Images has always been about providing you visual answers. We hope this update makes it easier and even a bit more fun to find the images you’re looking for.

Posted by Hongyi Li, Associate Product Manager

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Google Handwrite gets easier and faster

Since we launched Google Handwrite last summer for smartphones and tablets, we’ve been improving recognition quality and also working on a number of features to make it easier and faster to handwrite your searches on Google. You can now distinguish between ambiguous characters, overlap your characters, and write multiple characters at a time in Chinese.

Is it an L, a 1 or an I?
If you’ve tried Handwrite before, you may have had some trouble entering a lowercase “L”, the number “1”, or a capital “I”. Now, we provide alternate interpretations of your characters that you can select above the space bar. Similarly, in Japanese the characters “イ” and “ィ” look nearly identical but are different characters and produce different search results. If Google interprets your handwriting one way and you meant the other, you can now more easily make a correction.



Some overlapping is OK
Compared with tablets, mobile phone screens are smaller and are a little more difficult to write on. Now, instead of squeezing in your letters across the width of the small screen or writing one letter at a time, you can write letters on top of one another. Say you’re in the grocery store and you want to look up a recipe for quiche on your phone. When you write the letters “q”, “u”, “i”, “c”, “h”, and “e”, it’s okay if they overlap and are garbled a bit.



Multiple characters at a time in Chinese
When we first launched last summer, you could only write one Chinese character at a time. Now, you can write more than one character at a time on a line, which makes it much faster and easier to enter your search.



To enable Google Handwrite, go to Google.com on your smartphone or tablet, go to settings, select “Enable” Handwrite, and save the settings. For more tips and tricks, view our Help Center page.

Posted by Lawrence Chang, Product Manager

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Advanced Power Searching with Google -- Registration Opens Today

What historic cafe inspired a poem by a Nobel Laureate? In the last three barista world championships, which winners did not use beans from their home country? If you were preparing a blog post on “Curious Trivia of Coffee Culture,” how would you find the answers to these questions? What else would you discover? Now you can sign up for our Advanced Power Searching with Google online course and find out.

Building on Power Searching with Google, Advanced Power Searching with Google helps you gain a deeper understanding of how to become a better researcher. You will solve complex search challenges similar to those I posed in my blog, or a Google a Day, and explore Google’s advanced search tools not covered in the first class.

Oftentimes the most intriguing questions invite you to explore beyond the initial answer, and there’s no single correct path to get there. When looking for questions that can’t be solved with a single query, “search” can quickly turn into “research.” Google Search offers a palette of tools to help you dive deeper into the web of knowledge.

Visit www.powersearchingwithgoogle.com to learn more about our online search courses, and review our search tips on the Power Searching with Google Quick Reference Guide. Advanced Power Searching begins on January 23 and ends on February 8th.



Posted by Dan Russell, Über Tech Lead for Search Quality and User Happiness

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