IIT, Roorkee-educated Amit Singhal is senior vice-president at Google, in charge of search. He spoke to HT on search’s new frontiers.
Q: What are the emerging frontiers in search? Where do you see search ten years from now?
A: We realized search needs to be far more mobile friendly. Whatever we do we do thinking that it is for all, including languages other than English. Every citizen of the world (in a few years) have an always-on device. They will find exactly what they want, whenever they want – anywhere on earth. Based on Gmail, we can even do personal search based only on our own things. Like for instance, checking what time is my flight leaving (demonstrates).
Q: Can this be combined with robotics? So you search for something a machine executes?
A: Let me show you my smartwatch. It can call me a cab. I just tap it and say “Call me a car,” and it does. This is bits dancing with atoms.
Q: Do you see Bing as a competitor? You also faced regulatory issues in the UK.
{{/usCountry}}Q: Do you see Bing as a competitor? You also faced regulatory issues in the UK.
{{/usCountry}}A: We have to outrun others. I usually say as I drive this car, I am looking at 98% of the time at the road in front of me. Our focus is on users. Occasionally a website that loses traffic because we changed our algorithms to take care of our users will get upset.
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