Bored with politics? Google's new tools may help

Google is using data collection to bring you closer to the presidential race

Following politics can be tiring, but Google's new tools could make fact-checking candidates easier than ever.

During the final Republican debate this week, Google will debut features that let viewers compile and compare each candidate's comments in real time.

Google estimates that political searches surge by as much as 440 percent during a debate, and thus hope to make information easier to sort through by giving each candidate a specific place to post content to the public directly through Google Search.

In this experimental feature, candidates can publish longer responses, to include images and video, to flesh out a point that they wouldn't otherwise have time for in a televised debate.

Google Trends will also be implemented to track the search popularity of each candidate, as well as conduct special polls with the audience.

Fox News is slated to air the results of Google Trends' findings after the debate, adding an element of interactivity to the night's proceedings besides reading up on each potential president's platform.

Not only will each candidate become ranked, but trending keywords and issues will also be measured to see exactly who — or what — the public latches onto.

Real-time updating polls on search popularity for each candidate

Additionally, three YouTube personalities will make an appearance as guest moderators — Nabela Noor, Mark Watson, and Dulce Candy — who will each ask a question based on issues that matter to them.

This won't be the first time YouTube has gotten involved with political debates. The video site's partnership with CNN has intertwined politics with the web for nearly a decade, having users submit questions directly to the presidential hopefuls.

To participate in Google's coverage of the Republican debate, simply search "Fox News debate" this Thursday starting at 7pm ET, with the prime time debate beginning at 9pm ET.

While its unsure if Google will succeed in making politics easier to follow, but any effort to modernize the process (or just bolster voter turnout) is a-okay in our book.

Parker Wilhelm
Parker Wilhelm is a freelance writer for TechRadar. He likes to tinker in Photoshop and talk people's ears off about Persona 4.
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