Google Instant launches, pushes dynamic results

Google Instant - it's pretty fast
Google Instant - it's pretty fast

Google has unveiled its brand-new search engine this week, Google Instant.

Instead of waiting for you to press the search button, Google Instant brings you results in real-time, which change with each and every key stroke.

The result is the speediest search engine we have seen, which predicts what you are about to type.

"You don't really want search-as-you-type (no one wants search results for [bike h] in the process of searching for [bike helmets])," explained Marissa Mayer, VP Search Products & User Experience , in a blog post.

"You really want search-before-you-type – that is, you want results for the most likely search given what you have already typed."

Cache rules everything around me

In the blog post, Mayer explains the technology behind Instant Search, noting: "To bring Google Instant to life, we needed a host of new technologies including new caching systems, the ability to adaptively control the rate at which we show results pages and an optimisation of page-rendering JavaScript to help web browsers keep up with the rest of the system.

"In the end, we needed to produce a system that was able to scale while searching as fast as people can type and think – all while maintaining the relevance and simplicity people expect from Google."

On Twitter, Google CEO Eric Schmidt was so excited about the launch he hinted before the release: "We are already fast... fast is about to get faster."

Not everyone will see Google Instant straight away as this is a rolling launch. However, if you are in the France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Spain and the UK and sign into Google you should have it.

Google does not say whether it will become the core search engine experience for Chrome, Firefox, Safari and IE 8.

If you can't wait to see Google Instant, then point your browser to www.google.com/webhp?sclient=psy to try it out.

Or you could watch the video below, which shows off Google Instant in a Bob Dylan styled mashup. Not sure whay Dylan makes of this new technology but there you go - it's not exactly sticking it to the man.

Marc Chacksfield

Marc Chacksfield is the Editor In Chief, Shortlist.com at DC Thomson. He started out life as a movie writer for numerous (now defunct) magazines and soon found himself online - editing a gaggle of gadget sites, including TechRadar, Digital Camera World and Tom's Guide UK. At Shortlist you'll find him mostly writing about movies and tech, so no change there then.