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Google working on algorithm to help identify most poorly spelt questions
In search of excellence MASABATA MKWANANZI
GOOGLE has announced how it is applying Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine-learning techniques to provide better search results for users in the coming weeks and months. The tech giant says it’s been working on a new spell-checking tool that promises to help identify the most poorly spelt questions. The new spelling algorithm will help Google better understand the context of misspelt words, and users will be able to find the right results, all in under 3 milliseconds. “One in 10 queries every day are misspelt. Today, we’re introducing a new spelling algorithm that uses a deep neural net to significantly improve our ability to decipher misspellings,” said
Prabhakar Raghavan, head of Search at Google. Google says this change makes a greater improvement to spelling than all of its improvements over the last five years. Before introducing the spelling algorithm, the company tried to help with its “did you mean” feature that suggests proper spellings. According to Raghavan, 15% of Google search queries each day are ones that Google has never seen before, meaning the company has to constantly work to improve its search results. Google will also be using AI to divide broader searches into subtopics to help provide better results. “We’ve recently made a breakthrough in ranking
and we are now able to not just index web pages, but individual passages from the pages. By better understanding the relevancy of specific passages, we can find that needle-in-a-haystack information you’re looking for,” said Raghavan. Also, Google says it will let users search for songs by simply humming or whistling melodies, initially in English on iOS and 20 languages on Android. Users will able to launch the feature by opening the latest version of the Google app or Search widget, tapping the mic icon, and saying “What’s this song?” or selecting the “Search a song” button, followed by 10-15 seconds of humming or whistling.
