Online search giant, Google, often tests waters for new services by rolling out a "beta" (first) version of an idea to gauge public reaction. By employing this strategy, it's easy to imagine a building full of creative, "mad scientist" types cooking up latest and greatest online gizmos.
In fact, you can take a peek at what's cooking at Google by logging on to http://labs.google.com.
There you'll find glimpses of true "bleeding edge" technology Google thinks will shape way we use information on Internet in very near future.
** Online Video Search **
Log on to http://video.google.com to see next step in Google's quest to become world's foremost repository of online and offline information.
This first attempt at providing searchable data about video is currently restricted to recent television shows.
Unlike video search at rival Yahoo! ( http://video.yahoo.com ) which provides a searchable database of actual video clips available for viewing right online, Google's video search results take browser to a page with still frame images and text transcripts of show.
Since it rates much easier to search text than video, this particular format of transcript combined with still frame should win out over straight video clip method (at least for now).
** Help With Keyword Searches **
One problem everyone encounters periodically online involves wanting to find something, but not knowing exactly how to phrase request to a search engine.
You sort of know what you want, but aren't 100% sure how to phrase it, or results you get from phrases you use don't give you results you want.