Google celebrates Search Engine's 15th Birthday

The world's largest search engine turns 15 today!

To celebrate its birthday, at an event in Menlo Park, Google announced a few new features for its mobile products, including features for its iOS app and redesigns across the board. Tamar Yehoshua, VP of search at Google, demoed some of Google's search features. Yehoshua showed how Google is able to maintain context through multiple searches. She also demonstrated how Google has increased how it's using its "card" design metaphor in more places.

Google's iOS app will soon be updated with push notifications, which can make it work more predictively as it does on Android. You can also look at maps directly with the app and, more interestingly, directly ask Google to save reminders for you, which will pop up at notifications directly within the Search app. The features don't quite bring it up to parity with Google Now on Android — which is of course much more integrated with the core OS — but it does finally bring features to iPhone users that have been lacking.

On Android, you'll get better conversation experiences, Google says, so you can ask follow-up questions without having to repeat the context. The example Google used was initially asking about the Eiffel Tower, then asking more questions about its height and location using pronouns instead of repeating the original query.

On mobile, HTML searches will feature a new redesign, including Google's now ubiquitous cards and details from its Knowledge Graph. Many of Google's new features include giving information directly within search instead of sending you out to another page. Yehoshua showed how you can dig up nutritional information without having to leave its interface — and in fact it can present that information in a comparison chart.

Originally called BackRub and based in a Menlo Park garage, Google was founded by PHD students Larry Page and Sergey Brin as part of a research project.
It has since grown into the world’s most visited website, making its founders multi-billionaires.
The actual date of Google’s birthday has long been a topic of debate, with a number of analysts saying a more accurate birthday would be September 7 – the date the website may have been incorporated, or September 15 – the date the domain name Google.com is believed to have been first registered.
The reason for Google celebrating its birthday on 27 September appears to stem from an argument the search engine had with Yahoo in 2005 over their respective size and growth rate.