Google knows how much to tip (and can split the check too.)

Have a dinner check that you're going to split evenly amongst the diners and also want to know how much to tip? Just search Google for tip for $92.37 (change the amount as appropriate) and search. You'll be presented with an interactive result telling you how much to tip @ 15% and what the total will then be. If you wish to tip more (or less) or have more diners with which to evenly split the check, just adjust those fields accordingly.

Broadening Google Patents

Last year, we launched two improvements to Google Patents: the Prior Art Finder and European Patent Office (EPO) patents. Today we’re happy to announce the addition of documents from four new patent agencies: China, Germany, Canada, and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). Many of these documents may provide prior art for future patent applications, and we hope their increased discoverability will improve the quality of patents in the U.S. and worldwide.

Read the full post on Inside Search.

Google deprecates the ~ operator

So…you might have heard by now, and have been asking: 
    Why did Google turn-down the ~ (synonym) operator?
As regular readers recall, up until this past week, Google used to have a single-term synonym operator.  That is, you could do a query like this:  
   [ ~beginner class ]       
-- and get an automatic expansion of synonyms for beginner (novice, freshman, inexperienced...)  
or you could write a query like... 
   [ homicide investigation ~officer  “San Antonio” ~report ]
You can see why users might like this--they want to get Google's synonym expansion for "officer" and "report" but not homicide, investigation or San Antonio.  That is, sophisticated searchers KNOW those terms (homicide, investigation, "San Antonio") will be in the articles they seek, but they don't know which synonym was used for "officer" or "report" or “account” or… whatever the synonym might be.

Read the full article @ SearchReSearch.

What do you love?

Head on over to http://www.wdyl.com/ and tell Google what you love and see what sort of results you get.

[Infographic] Google’s 200 Ranking Factors

Source: Search Engine Journal

Time to back away from the cookie jar? Introducing nutrition info in search

Figuring out how to make smart choices about some of our favorite foods can often be a cumbersome and daunting process. So we’re hoping we can make those choices a little bit easier: starting today you will be able to quickly and easily find extensive nutrition information for over 1,000 fruits, vegetables, meats and meals in search. From the basics of potatoes and carrots to more complex dishes like burritos and chow mein, you can simply ask, “How much protein is in a banana?” or “How many calories are in an avocado?” and get your answer right away. You'll hear the answer to your specific question, see relevant nutrition information under an expansion, and be able to switch to other related foods or serving sizes.

Read the full post @ Inside Search.

RIP Google SMS Search

Google SMS Search was shut down sometime in the past few days. No there wasn't any warning, but then again you probable hadn't noticed anyway.