Quibbling over the first movie featuring Julia Roberts? A lighthearted conversation that used to last an entire course is now extinguished with a simple Google search. (It's Satisfaction, by the way.)
Search engines have done a whole lot of good, placing the world's knowledge at our fingertips.
But they're even more powerful than you know with many useful features that are left unadvertised and hidden.
For this list, I looked at the Top 3 search engines — Google, Yahoo! and Bing — for more options to find exactly what you're looking for.
1. Easy math. For those without a calculator handy, search engines offer an easy way to do quick math. Just type in your equation — something like 78*3.2/98 — and it'll give you the result (2.55).
Google, Yahoo! and Bing all do this, but Google does it best. It will show you the answer as you type and doesn't return any search results other than the answer you seek.
2. Find the time. Web searchers can type "what time is it in Japan" or any other location into either Google or Bing to find out the local time instantly.
3. Help with conversions. How many cups are in a quart? Or how many pounds in a kilogram? How many U.S. dollars in a euro? Simply typing those questions into Google or Yahoo! will net the result (Bing struggles with the currency question but can answer the other two.) It's a handy tool for recipe conversions or for international travel.
Oh, and the answers are 4, 2.2 and 1.42, respectively.
4. Check that flight. To check the status of a flight, you can enter the flight number and carrier into Google or Bing (but not Yahoo!) for a live update. Search something like "Delta Flight 1567" and it will tell you if the flight is on time and what time it departs and lands. Bing and Google pull from flightstats.com for this information.
Bing also allows you to compare flight prices from different online vendors at bing.com/travel.
5. Search credible sites. On Google, you can tell the search engine to return results from only certain types of Web sites, such as government or education sites, which usually have more trustworthy results.
So, if you're looking for information on unemployment benefits but want results only from government Web sites, you can Google "unemployment benefits site:.gov". The ".gov" is where you'd swap out ".edu" if you want results from the Web sites of educational institutions.
6. Wonder Wheel. Search engines perform the best when you're the most specific, but that's not always possible. Google offers a different way to search to help with this called the Wonder Wheel.
You start with a generic search term, say "chicken recipes." That term goes to the center of a spoked wheel with more specific terms listed at the perimeter. From there you can select "healthy chicken recipes" to make it more specific, which then moves to the center and offers even more specific options on the spokes. Then, you can settle on something like "healthy grilled chicken recipes" and see what the Google results are for that.
To activate the Wonder Wheel, find it on the left side under "More search tools" on any Google results page.
7. Google Squared. If you're looking to compare information on a certain topic, Google Squared is a great place to start. Typing in a topic like "Michigan state parks" will return a grid display with each park listed and columns for things like location and square footage.
You also can add more columns based on the information that Google collects for each state park, or whatever topic you choose. The page can then be exported as a spreadsheet for reference later. Try it at google.com/squared.
8. Live Twitter traffic. Twitter, too, has become a vast repository of searchable data. You can search public Twitter updates at search.twitter.com or in the search field on any Twitter page. My favorite search is a way to check for instant traffic updates.
In the search box, type "near:Detroit traffic." That will return live results for tweets sent near Detroit containing the word traffic, so you'll see things like "stuck in traffic on I-94! Tanker crash" to help inform your route. People also will often include photos.
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