Google rolled what could be controversial new tools Tuesday for Internet users to narrow and organize their search results – ideal for researchers and anyone who fails to find what they're googling for in their initial queries. One of Google's new tools will assemble the work of other Web sites into a spreadsheet-style format. The spreadsheet experiment, called “Google Squared,” doesn't simply show a set of Web links related to a search request. Instead, it fishes through Google's massive database to organize pertinent facts and other content in rows and columns. The potential controversy is over how much information Google lifts from other Web sites – the more it lifts the less users may feel inclined to visit the original sources, potentially upsetting some of those site owners, even if there is a link to the original source. Users who don't get the information they want from Squared can add criteria, which will appear in additional columns. Searches can be saved and accessed later for users who have Google accounts. In a Tuesday demonstration that was webcast, Google showed how a search request made about small dogs through the Squared tool will display pictures next to extensive descriptions about different breeds, on Google's own site. The content was imported from other Internet destinations. The Squared results show where the information originated, so people can still quickly go to the original source, said Marissa Mayer, Google's vice president of search products. Additionally, Google's new “Search Options” lets users “slice and dice” search results, narrowing them down in time to results from the past 24 hours, the past week or the past year, for example. “Search Options” also allows users to confine their search results to videos, product reviews and forum posts on a particular topic. Search results can also be viewed on a timeline displaying their popularity over time. Also previewed was an updated “Sky Map” that can allow users of its mobile phones to figure out which constellations they are looking at in the night sky. The changes are expected to roll out in phases during the next few weeks. The new technology does misfire, as Google readily acknowledged Tuesday. As part of the sneak peek at Squared, Google showed how a request for information about vegetables returned a spreadsheet that included a row for the sport of squash. “We are always striving for the ideal or perfect search engine,” Mayer said.
