Chapter 17: In which the Pirates mess about in Google Labs

"Today, we're going to learn to make plutonium from common household items."
-Filo (UHF)

In a sense, Google has been doing just that for years. They take common websites, throw in a little Google flare, and make into something grand! And this week, we Learning 2.0ers were tasked with poking about inside their super-secret (read: free to browse) web lab, where some of their upcoming ideas are being worked on. There are even a few bubbling beakers lying about!

Looking at their list of current Projects, it was hard for me to choose where to start first. If I'm honest, half the stuff on their list looked pretty silly to me. Take Google Sets for example. You enter in a few items from a set of things, and it predicts more items that belong in this set. WHY?! What the heck is the point of this?! I put in Pink Floyd, Yes, and ELO, and it was able to predict 12 more band names, thereby filling in a set of Prog rock band names. Bravo. Wow. Amazing. How the heck does that help me in any way? But, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that while Google Sets itself is pretty useless, its a good example of Prediction and Customization technology. By demonstrating how they can predict things you may be interested in, based on just a few pieces of information you've entered, they're giving you a glimpse into how they'll be able to better serve you, and your web searches, in the future. How about that, eh?

I returned to the lab and checked out what was behind Door #2. And this time, instead of finding a brand new technology I've never seen before, I found something much simpler. A variation on their already wonderful Google Maps they're calling Google Transit. Now, if you live in the King County area, you've probably used the King County Metro's Regional Trip Planner, a site to help you find which bus(es) to take to get you where you're going. And you've probably also been witness to how bad this trip planner can be. Its very picky about addresses, its not exactly the prettiest website to look at, and most of all its not very accurate. This is where Google Transit comes in! Using the Google Maps API and the bus timetables available through Metro, it recommends three possible routes to take to get you to your destination. The layout seems nicer, and unlike Metro's Trip Planner, Google Transit doesn't recommend the exact same route 2-3 times. Instead it gives you three different choices. Comparing the same "trip", Google Transit gave me three routes, only one of which was recommended by Metro's site. Add to that Google Maps' ability to show you real time traffic on the same map, and you even get a sense of which route will avoid the worst traffic. Google Transit is only available in select cities right now, as is the traffic report addition to Google maps. But thankfully, Seattle is one of them. Oh, and don't forget to visit Google Maps for your next visit to Japan, where they state they do trip planning for "All regional and national rail networks, domestic airlines and ferries"!