Google g’Days April 1 with predictive search

The new gDay search technology uses machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques from a system called MATE (Machine Automated Temporal Extrapolation) to successfully predict future events and internet content.

MATE is able to collate the company's index of historic, cached web content and a combination of recurrence plots to create a sophisticated model of what the internet will look like 24 hours from a given point.

"Google's Australian engineers have a history of major technological innovations, from Google Maps to Mapplets to Traffic for Google Maps. Giving humankind the ability to see 24 hours into the future is just a natural progression – of sorts," said Alan Noble, Head of Engineering for Google Australia & New Zealand.

By noting the correlation between a set of variables, including fuzzy measure analysis, online betting odds and the weather forecast from the iGoogle weather gadget, gDay can access Web pages before they're actually created – allowing users to view future information including news events, share price movements and sporting results.

"Users – particularly those who like a casual flutter – will really benefit from this feature. Maybe you want to see tomorrow's rugby scores. Maybe you want to see tomorrow's lotto numbers. Maybe this is the greatest freakin' product ever," Noble said.

And if the testimonials found on gDay’s homepage are anything to go by, then Google can expect the same success it enjoyed with the launch of last year’s Google TiSP.

“This is awesome. I can now check the questions ahead of time and impress my girlfriend by knowing all the answers to ‘Are you Smarter than a 5th Grader?’“ Wazza from Queensland testified.

Coincidentally, April 1 has been a date steeped in Google innovations and world firsts. Last year the search giant announced two inventive products, Google TiSP a free, self installed, home wireless broadband service that runs through your toilet, and Google Paper a new Gmail feature that allows customers to request a physical copy of any email with the click of a button.

In years prior, Google has also used the date to announce the secret to its search algorithms – using pigeon clusters to compute the relative value of Web pages.

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