Tag: search
Google Search Adds Topic Buttons to Help You Sharpen Queries – CNET
Chrome ‘@’ shortcuts search tabs, bookmarks, and history right from the address bar
![Google’s illustration visualizes the new shortcuts feature with a google search typing field that only as an “@” symbol along with three magnifying classes that have a favorites star, history clock, and chrome icon in them with lines going to the @ symbol in the field. Background is baby blue.](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/wYbNsp6J3SsR9RLfCyNONsfkLKw=/77x0:923x564/1310x873/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71719149/SiteSearch_Header.max_1000x1000.0.png)
Chrome tab jockeys and bookmark hoarders, rejoice: you can now quickly swift through your whole browser mess with a new simple “@” shortcut in the address bar. Available on the latest Chrome version 108 for desktops, the feature will help simplify tasks like getting to that article tab you know you left open somewhere without needing to conduct another web search.
If you’re like me, you might have a whole lot of troubleshooting articles saved as bookmarks, but when someone needs help with some specific problem, you just Google it again instead of looking for what you’ve saved. Now, you can type “@bookmarks” or just “@,” then hit the space bar and click “Search Bookmarks,” and start typing some key terms.
Google Chrome Has New Search Bar Filters
![](https://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Chrome-search.jpg?width=600&height=250&fit=crop&trim=2,2,2,2)
Chrome’s address bar is already feature-packed, with the ability to search for pages, history items, bookmarks, data from extensions, and much more. Google is now making it easier to filter results with special shortcuts.
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Microsoft Considering Building All-In-One App for Search, Shopping, Messaging, and More
According to a report today by The Information, Microsoft has been in the early stages of building a “super app” at the direction of the company’s CEO Satya Nadella. Nadella has reportedly instructed teams at Microsoft to better integrate Bing, the company’s search engine, into other services and apps, such as Microsoft Teams and Outlook, as a groundwork for the “super app.”
While it isn’t clear whether Microsoft will ultimately launch such an app, the people with knowledge of the discussions said CEO Satya Nadella has laid the groundwork by pushing the Bing search engine to work better with other Microsoft mobile products. For instance, he has directed Bing to integrate with Microsoft’s Teams messaging and Outlook email apps, making it easier for customers to share search results in messages. A spokesperson for Microsoft didn;t comment for this article.
Microsoft is not an entirely consumer-oriented company, with most of its business coming from selling software and corporate sales. Microsoft has reported ambitions to become more consumer-friendly, offering services directly to customers, such as the “super app.” Microsoft has failed to acquire large apps and social media platforms such as TikTok and Pinterest in the past, which could have been part of the company’s larger plans.
Today’s report also sheds some interesting new light on Microsoft’s unsuccessful attempts in the past to outbid Google to become the default search engine
on iPhone. Google pays Apple billions each year to stay the default on iPhone, and while users can change it, the default setting puts Microsoft’s Bing at a disadvantage. According to The Information, Microsoft has had high-level talks with Apple to try and outbid Google as the default search engine but failed each time.
Microsoft has periodically bid on Apple’s mobile search contract, according to a former employee briefed on the situation, but Google has won the deal every time. The negotiations have typically taken place directly between Nadella and top Apple executives behind closed doors, leaving many top Microsoft executives in the dark about the process, this person said.
The report notes that Microsoft in 2012 ran a public relations campaign to show how Bing was more usable for people with a vision disability compared to Google. The public relations stunt was not “enough to win Apple’s approval.”
This article, “Microsoft Considering Building All-In-One App for Search, Shopping, Messaging, and More” first appeared on MacRumors.com
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Google Photos tests new search function to let you find people by their face
Watch out – these are officially the most dangerous creative software to search for
Google Chrome Has a New Search Sidebar: Here’s How to Use It
![](https://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Chrome-side-search.jpg?width=600&height=250&fit=crop&trim=2,2,2,2)
Google has been testing a new sidebar in Chrome that makes web searching easier, and it’s starting to roll out more widely with the release of Chrome 108. Here’s how it works, and how to use it.
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Southern hemisphere’s largest radio telescope joins search for extraterrestrial tech
The largest radio telescope in the southern hemisphere has joined the search for technosignatures, signals that indicate the presence of technology developed by extraterrestrial intelligence. A new instrument utilized by the MeerKAT radio telescope, which is in a remote region of South Africa, will increase the number of targets that Breakthrough Listen can observe by a factor of 1,000.
A team of engineers and astronomers involved with Listen, an initiative that’s seeking signs of intelligent extraterrestrial life, spent three years working on the instrument, which is said to be the most powerful equipment ever deployed to aid the search for technosignatures. The instrument is integrated with MeerKAT’s control and monitoring systems.
Listen is already employing the Green Bank Telescope (GBT) in West Virginia, the Parkes Telescope in Australia and others in its hunt for technosignatures. What’s different about MeerKAT is that there’s no need to physically move its antennas. Its 64 dishes can monitor an area of the sky 50 times larger than what GBT can view at once.
“Such a large field of view typically contains many stars that are interesting technosignature targets,” Listen principal investigator Dr. Andrew Siemion said in a statement. “Our new supercomputer enables us to combine signals from the 64 dishes to get high resolution scans of these targets with excellent sensitivity, all without impacting the research of other astronomers who are using the array.”
Along with being able to monitor a larger area of the sky at a given time, the ability to scan 64 objects at once will help Listen to detect and dismiss interfering signals from spacecraft launched by humans, such as satellites. One of the first targets that the new instrument will observe is Alpha Centauri. In 2020, Listen detected an odd radio signal coming from Proxima Centauri, the closest star to our sun and a member of the Alpha Centauri system.
“It will take us just two years to search over one million nearby stars,” Listen project scientist Dr. Cherry Ng said. “MeerKAT will provide us with the ability to detect a transmitter akin to Earth’s brightest radio beacons out to a distance of 250 light years in our routine observing mode.”