Last year, Google updated the dictionary card and added a lot of useful features, including etymological information, a translation box and a graph that shows the use of a word over time. If you only want to find the origin of a word like "basilica", you don't have to search for [define basilica], expand the card and scroll to the word origin section. You can search for [basilica origin] or [basilica word origin] and Google shows a special version of the dictionary card that highlights etymological information.

Google updated the translation card and made it more useful and more interactive. When you search for [translate hello to italian] or other similar queries, Google lets you change the input language and the translation language, switch between the two languages, edit the text you want to translate, listen to the translated text and find alternate translations.



If you use the mobile interface, you can also enable a full screen mode.



This screenshot shows the full screen mode in Chrome for Android:


Here's the old Google Translate card:


{ Thanks, Herin. }

Google's stock card that's displayed when you search for [GOOG], [TSLA], [Microsoft stock] and other similar queries is now a lot bigger. Tabs are placed above the chart and you can get the stock price at any time by mousing over the chart or tapping it.


Drag the dotted line to get the price variation.


Another change is that the links to Google Finance, Yahoo Finance and MSN Money have been removed.

{ Thanks, Jérôme. }

You don't have to go to Google Maps for driving directions. A simple Google search can provide an answer much faster. Just search for [directions from START_ADDRESS to END_ADDRESS] or [from START_ADDRESS to END_ADDRESS] and you'll get a small map and the distance between the two locations. Expand the card and you'll find the driving directions. This also works in the mobile search interface for both smartphones and tablets.

Here's an example for [from London to Dublin].


Click the big arrow icon to see the driving directions right on the Google search results page:


You can open Google Maps by clicking the map thumbnail. This way, you can find alternate routes, walking directions, transit directions and more.

"These directions are for planning purposes only. You may find that construction projects, traffic, weather, or other events may cause conditions to differ from the map results, and you should plan your route accordingly. You must obey all signs or notices regarding your route," informs Google.

This feature is also useful to find the distance between two places, as well as the driving time in current traffic.

Google tests a card-style interface for the Google News OneBox. It's bigger, snippets are shorter, there's a lot of white space and the link to Google News search results is placed at the bottom of the card.

Here's a screenshot of a Google France search results page:


{ Thanks, Frédéric. }

Google updated the dictionary OneBox with etymological information, a translation box and a graph that shows the use of a word over time. The graph is based on the Google Books Ngram Viewer and it shows the number of mentions of a word over time in a corpus of millions of books. You need to click the arrow icon at the bottom of the box to see the new features.

Here's the expanded definition box for [sophist definition]:


Google offers a lot of useful information about the origin of a word and it shows how it has evolved. Here's a more complex example for "engine".


If you pick a language in the translate box, Google remembers the language and it translates your keywords automatically.


Google now shows synonyms, antonyms and usage examples for each meaning of the word and links to the synonyms, antonyms and some words from the definitions:


Search for [define top] to see a huge list of definitions and 2 distinct dictionary entries. If you search for [define draught], Google shows the definitions for "draft". Search for [define a] to see a long list of prefixes, suffixes and abbreviations.

Sometimes Google also shows a topic like "geometry" next to a definition:


Unfortunately, the dictionary option from the search tools is no longer available. This means that Google's definitions from the web are only displayed if the words can't be found in the dictionary used by Google (Oxford Dictionary).



Another drawback: Google no longer links to Wikipedia, Dictionary.com, Answers.com, Merriam-Webster, The Free Dictionary and other sites that provide definitions.

{ Thanks, James Sacuan. }

Google tests an updated version of the Google News OneBox, with bigger thumbnails. The images are really big and I find them distracting. Another change is that the first link no longer sends you to a Google News search results page, it points to a news article and borrows its title.


Here's the existing interface:


{ Thanks, Michel. }

After the instant results for definitions and local time, Google's translation OneBox has a new card-style interface inspired by Google Now.

To trigger this OneBox, search for "translate", followed by the text you want to translate. For example: [translate mein luftkissenfahrzeug ist voller aale]. You could also add the destination language: [translate mein luftkissenfahrzeug ist voller aale into french].


You can also search for [word in language] or [word to language]. For example: [breakfast in Spanish], [estrella to English]. This also works for short phrases and expressions.


{ Thanks, Arpit. }

Google updated the weather OneBox from the desktop search interface to match the tablet interface. The new OneBox is huge, it includes more information and it's more interactive. While the old OneBox only displayed the weather forecast for 4 days, the new one has an hourly and an 8-day forecast for temperature, precipitation and wind.


Here's the old interface (I've managed to take this screenshot by pretending I'm using IE7 and changing the user-agent):



It's interesting that many search features are first added to the mobile/tablet interface and a few months later to the desktop UI.

{ Thanks, Mikhail. }

The old Google Image Search interface is still available in the OneBox result that's displayed for some Google searches like [tropical birds] or [europe map]. If you add "image", "images", "photo" or "photos" to your query, Google will show 4 times more image results. It's like a simplified image search interface inside the regular Google Search.

Google updated the desktop OneBoxes for definitions and local time to match the card layout from Google Now. The same layout is also used in the mobile search UI for most Google OneBoxes.



What's unique about the cards? They're much bigger, they include a lot more information, more white space and more distinctive headers. They stand out more and they're harder to ignore.

{ Thanks, Milivella, Arpit, Mikhail. }

Google's OneBoxes start to become interactive gadgets. After launching a new mobile weather OneBox and an updated unit conversion OneBox, it's time for Google Calculator to morph into a calculator app.

Just type a query like [73-45] in the search box and you'll get more than just the result. Google also displays a mini-calculator with real buttons for digits, parentheses, arithmetic operations, trigonometric functions, exponential and logarithmic functions.


It's certainly more efficient to just type the expression you want to calculate, but some people might prefer the traditional buttons. They can search for [calculator] and use the new Google Calculator interface.

It's worth noting that Google's calculator doesn't mimic a standard pocket calculator: you can enter a long expression with multiple operations and Google doesn't display the result until you press the "=" button. This way, you can enter "3+3*3" and still get the proper result. Another thing to keep in mind is that you can't press the "1" button and then the "sin" button to compute sin(1), you should press the "sin" button first and then enter the argument of the function. There's no persistent "clear" button, but you can long-press the "delete" button.

{ Thanks, James. }

Google has a new tablet interface for the weather OneBox. It now looks more like an application and it includes more information: precipitation, humidity, wind speed, hourly weather forecast, 10-day forecast. The OneBox is interactive and you can select an hour or a day to see the forecast.

"When you type [weather] into Google on your tablet, you'll see the current weather and you can scroll through the hourly and ten-day forecast. You can also toggle the Precipitation and Wind buttons to check out the percent chance of precipitation and wind direction/speed, respectively," informs Google. It should work for iPad and Android tablets.




Ironically, the desktop weather OneBox has less information than the mobile OneBox (both the smartphone interface and the tablet interface). The smartphone UI was more colorful, but now it looks just like the tablet OneBox. Sure, it's more likely that you'll need weather information when you use a mobile device, but the desktop interface used to be richer and more comprehensive.



{ via Search Engine Roundtable }

Google updated the unit conversion OneBox and this time it's interactive. For example, you can search for [10 pounds in kg], get the result and quickly change the number of pounds or kilograms directly from the OneBox. You can also select a different unit of measurement from the list: metric ton, gram, stone, ounce.



Google's gadget even lets you change the conversion type and switch to a different category: speed, length, temperature, volume, area, fuel consumption, time or digital storage. The gadget is only displayed for common measurement units, so you'll still see the old interface when you search for [10 pascals to Torr] or [2 radians to degrees].


Now you no longer need iGoogle's metric conversion gadget.


{ Thanks, Diego. }

As previously anticipated, Google introduced Knowledge Graph, a new way to handle queries that replaces keywords with objects. It's like replacing a dictionary with an encyclopedia.

"The Knowledge Graph enables you to search for things, people or places that Google knows about—landmarks, celebrities, cities, sports teams, buildings, geographical features, movies, celestial objects, works of art and more—and instantly get information that's relevant to your query. This is a critical first step towards building the next generation of search, which taps into the collective intelligence of the web and understands the world a bit more like people do," explains Google.

For now, you'll only notice a new info pane in the right sidebar that shows more information about your query. Google's graph has 500 million objects and 3.5 billion facts, so you'll see the new section quite often. Google shows a small thumbnail, a snippet from a Wikipedia article, a few relevant facts and some related queries. It's just like a Wikipedia infobox automatically generated using data from the Web and that's smart enough to only show important facts and hide the things people won't need.


The new info panes will also help users disambiguate queries just like Wikipedia's disambiguation pages help users find the right articles.


Wikipedia's internal links help you find other interesting articles. Google also adds links to all the other objects from the graph.

Some may say that Google borrowed too many ideas from Wikipedia, but that's one step that could help search engines evolve. Understanding the relation between entities and learning their attributes allows Google to answer more complicated questions and get better search results. As Mashable says, "the transition from a word-based index to this knowledge graph is a fundamental shift that will radically increase power and complexity."

Google "begun to gradually roll out this view of the Knowledge Graph to U.S. English users. It's also going to be available on smartphones and tablets". If you don't see the new features yet, check back later.


{ Thanks, David. }

Google's OneBox for instant answers has a new interface that emphasizes the results. Google now displays the answer on the first line and the font size is bigger.



The Q&A OneBox now shows multiple answers for questions like [What is the cast of The Help?] or queries like [the dictator actors].




Until now, Google used the following template: "Best guess for ... is ...".


Just because Google no longer mentions that the answer is a "guess" doesn't mean that it's always accurate.