Google...a force for good?

Web search as a Force for Good? No, I am not talking about a new beta service from Google! I think that when web searches are not actually saving people's lives they are improving them by saving time! I talk about how the 4 billion web pages Google indexes can be harnessed to actually make a difference in the everyday lives of people around the world with the innovative new services that Google is coming up with.

Where's Google going next? Is it remaining just a search engine for text on the web? Why is it venturing into the banner ad space, where there are plenty of well entrenched companies? After information and product searches, what next? Searching for people?

How is Google managing to crack, in a seemingly easy way, the tough problems in linguistics and semantic understanding that researchers around the world are struggling to solve?
How will Google defend its key resource, the vast amounts of data it collects on a daily basis, when the accessibility to such vast storage is becoming easier?

What made Yahoo's once vaunted search bite the dust? Peter Norvig answers all these questions and gives a unique view of what happens inside Google, including the tradition behind the curious holiday logos that Google uses.


http://cdn.conversationsnetwork.org/ITC.ETech2005-PeterNorvig-2005.03.15.mp3