Google Instant Saves You Precious Milliseconds

Google users may have noticed recently that Google can now predict and display their results before they finish typing. Fear not, the Internet has not become self-aware… yet.

Instead, it’s a new feature from the web’s premiere search engine that was released on Sept. 8 called Google Instant. Instant eliminates the need for the now-obsolete “search” button and allows users to view streaming search results as they type. It’s a clever, if a bit intrusive, feature that brings us ever closer to the inevitable cyborg apocalypse.

The new system sports an improved prediction system to “guide your search” and will shave anywhere from two to five seconds off of the typical Google search, according to a press release from the company.

It seems hard to grasp, but in practice, the system is surprisingly fluid. The results appear automatically below a list of suggested searches, so searching for “Boston” displays results for the city by the time the second letter is typed. Even if the search was for “borders,” an extra letter “r” brings up the correct results near instantaneously.

In other words, it’s the perfect tool if you thought searching the entirety of the Internet in 24 seconds or less just took too long.

This short YouTube video by internet culture blog Urlesque.com shows the speed of the new feature by trying to match the rapid speed of Billy Joel’s ode to pop culture “We Didn’t Start the Fire.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gxrNYMMWmM

If you can’t guess who wins, just ask Deep Blue about it. Or just try it yourself. Google Instant is automatically on for anyone who visits the Google homepage.

Google Instant launched just as a new Nielsen study reports that Microsoft’s search engine, Bing, now holds 13.9% of the market share, beating out the aging Yahoo! for the number two spot. Bing’s success puts more pressure on Google to retain their massive slice of the search engine advertising pie, and it appears that Google isn’t about to go down without a fight.