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Homework Week 6
The Google Search Engine -A Technological and Cultural Phenemenon
The internet search engine known as "Google" has entered rarified air as one of history's transformative products or technologies whose name has become synonymous with its entire scope of usage. That lexicon includes grabbing a Kleenex, making a Xerox, taking your Thermos to work, using your iPod and has now been joined by "googling" a topic on the internet.
Sergey Brin and Larry Page started Google in 1998. The entrepreneurs had as their mission to create the ultimate web search tool. Success quickly ensued and in the fall of that year PC Magazine luaded their Google search engine as a comer. In a scant few years, Google displaced most if its competitors and has become the de facto search tool in much of the wired world.
Google's many useful search features include Everyday Essentials, Reference Tools, Health Search, and Trip Planning amongst many others. Each of these categories are broken down into many target search techiques (the Google Features webpage had primers on each). For example under Everyday Essentials, a user can quickly learn how to find out the time in Istanbul, get a stock quote on "GOOG" (Google), whether or not their spouse's flight is ontime and the score of the New York Yankee game. And Google shows you how to do that quickly and easily (e.g. In the Google search box type: time Istanbul; stock quote Google; weather Los Angeles).
Futher useful Google tools include package tracking, book and author search, an online calculator, dictionary, movie showtimes, city and county information, area code search and a plethora of other search categories.
Google also has a very useful artificial intelligence gathering tool which the author of this site uses extensively. Any Google user who has an email address can program the search engine to track key words or topics, the 2012 London Olympic Games for instance, and any published article on your chosen topic will immediately be emailed to your address. This is an indispensible too for students, researchers, enthusiasts or hobbyists.
The above only scrapes the surface of Google's search possibilities. For more information, just GOOGLE it !!!!