The right day is not the 4th, as many wrote, probably getting confused with this. company registration datebut this is September 27, that is, from the moment when “we made a public statement that we were refusing to display the number of pages indexed.”
Since 2005, that is For 18 years now, Google has been celebrating its birthday on September 27th.. And this year marks 25 years since 1998, when what is now one of the giants of the Internet was just an idea in the minds of Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
The company decided to celebrate the anniversary with a series of initiatives launched with A beautiful and interesting open letter from CEO Sundar Pichaiwhich will presumably end in early October with the presentation of the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro smartphones, we will also remember some of the most interesting stages that led Google to what it is today: we have collected 10 of them below.
Google Secret: A Funny Story About How Employees Learn Even When They Go to the Bathroom
our correspondent Emanuele Capone
Jennifer Lopez’s cleavage and Google Images
On this occasion, Mountain View once again emphasized that creating a well-functioning search engine is not a task as simple as you think and that it’s not just about reading the question and giving the answer, but also about understanding the context (and words that can have different meanings in different contexts) and understanding what the person is actually looking for, be it texts, videos or images.
In this regard, the history of this event is interesting. the birth of Google Images in 2001., a tab on the search page that we take for granted today. And it’s all thanks to Jennifer Lopez and the iconic and bold Versace dress worn at the 2000 Grammy Awards: People kept looking for it, but had trouble finding it because the results back then “were nothing more than a list of links.” This problem “gave us the inspiration to create Google Images,” a page that makes it clear visually what was found.
“What You May Have Been Looking For” is the first use of AI.
2001 was also an important year for one of Google’s first machine learning applications: as we explained on Italian Tech in December 2022, this is a “Did you mean?” feature. or “Maybe you were looking for,” which checks whether the text you entered is correct and suggests the correct searches. Previously, if a search contained a spelling error, “we would help the user find other pages that contained the same error,” but these were generally not the best pages covering the topic they were looking for.
Twin Towers and Google News
A fundamental tool for journalists with Trends. (more details below), The news was released in 2002. after the information anxiety caused by the September 11 attacks: “To meet the need for real-time news, the following year we launched Google News, which provides links to various sources for a specific news story.”
“Make a Barrel” and other Easter eggs
Despite being a billion dollar company, Google is still a Silicon Valley company and is still irreverent spirit of the valley. Over the years, there have been many secrets and tricks that developers have hidden in search functions, from what happens when you type “barrel” to what it involves number 42 with meaning of life (who read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy already knows).
Trends visible through Trends
Born in 2006 “to help us understand research trends using aggregated data” and to create the now famous One Year of Research report (here it is for 2022)Today, Google Trends is “the largest free dataset of its kind in the world” and a truly useful tool for journalists, researchers, students and businesses to also understand how people’s interests change over time.
Phone app, first on iPhone
Today we take it for granted and necessary, but the Google smartphone app didn’t always exist: it appeared in 2008, paradoxically, first on the iPhone.. Some of the most useful features for small screens back then were autofill and location-related features, but today you can do so much more, e.g. search using Lens (more details below) through the camera. Obviously, for some time now also on Android.
Find out how busy the restaurant is
In 2015, one of the most useful Maps features appeared. (which can also be used in traditional search): Being able to see the busiest times of a given day when searching for restaurants, shops, and museums helps people better organize their trips.
Lens, camera research
Google Lens, which is now integrated into the cameras of Pixel smartphones and other devices. can be used as a standalone application and was released in 2017.: Turns your camera into a search tool and analyzes objects and texts in an image, comparing them to other images and ranking those other images based on their similarity and correspondence to the original. As it explains, “Today Lens processes more than 12 billion visual queries per month.”
Solar Energy, Air Quality and Pollen: Google Maps Forecasts
Simone Cosimi
Helpful Google: Flood Forecast
It is especially important in the climatically difficult years we are experiencing, Google’s Flood Hub combined with Fire Alert, is used through Maps and, through the use of artificial intelligence, allows you to receive forecasts in the area you are in regarding when and where flooding and flooding will occur. Created in 2018 for India and Bangladesh, it has spread to 80 countries, including parts of Italy.
2022 is the year of multiple studies
Perhaps the final summation of what Google has done in these 25 years is multi-search function combines texts and images together so people can search for what they want, the way they want: the idea is that you can (for example) take a photo of your dining table and add the phrase “tea table” to find a matching piece of furniture. Multi-search is available on smartphones in all countries and languages around the world where Lens is available. And who knows what will happen when this can be combined with Bard may be Google’s most promising generative AI.
@capoema