Is Google About To Change Search With Live Updates?

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In an interview with the Telegraph in December of 2009, Marissa Mayer hinted at upcoming changes for search in 2010 and beyond. Part of her vision for the future of Google was centered on language.

“Imagine what it would be like if there was a tool built into the search engine which translated my search query into every language and then searched the entire world’s websites,” she says. “And then invoked the translation software a second and third time – to not only then present the results in your native language, but then translated those sites in full when you clicked through.”

A small slice of Google’s future was shown when Goggles was updated in May for the Android platform with the inclusion of on the fly translation. But little of that future has been seen in regular search via the homepage. That could be changing soon, though.

Nowadays when you’re inputting a query into search it spits out a list of suggested topics based on popular terms. You still had to click on “Google Search” or “I’m Feeling Lucky” to bring up a page of search results. It now seems Google is working on a new feature that would stream results automatically based on what you’re actually typing without having to click on search. You can turn off streaming, as well.

Google has confirmed the video is real but isn’t commenting on whether or not this feature will go live anytime soon. A blog post from 2006 states that Google will intermittently run live tests and that said tests are “visible to a relatively few people” to improve search.

Sure, its just search but this could cut down the time it takes to search and get results. Let’s hope this one isn’t just an experiment.

[via Rob Ousbey]