The internet is one of the most powerful tools to ever grace the 21st Century. There is virtually an unlimited number of activities that you can do while on the net. These range from constructive activities to some that are just designed for fun and make you enjoy the moment. One company that has really enabled for all this power is Google. Without Google, most people would not really enjoy the internet. Google has developed services and numerous features that are bound to just plainly blow your mind. Of course there are almost hundreds of such services. While some are small and relatively small scale, others are huge, and show the might that Google has grown into. Consequently, let me highlight 5 of the Google services or features that I find to be the most outstanding.
- Google Sky.
Most people are only aware of Google Earth, which is a feature that enables you view the earth as it appears from space, and you can pan, zoom, and do a host of other activities. Well, Google Sky is the opposite of that. It enables you to view the sky and search the heavens from earth. Consequently, you can see the images of stars, galaxies, planets, and any other heavenly body that exists out there. All this information is taken from satellites, telescopes and probes, and is always kept up to date.
- Google Nutrition Comparison.
This is particularly optimized for nutrition enthusiasts. Through it, you are able to compare the nutrition levels of various foods, fruits, drinks, or any other common consumable. All that you have to do is type “compare banana and apple” and Google will give you a breakdown of how the two fruits compare. Through this, Google has put the power of managing your nutrition at your fingertips, and it is about high time we started to see the healthiest folks walking around town.
- Exclude Search Terms.
Google Search is already quite accurate with most standards, but getting the best results from it needs you to know exactly how to search. The results are always overwhelming, and it may be quite difficult to narrow down to exactly what you want. Realizing this, Google introduced a means of excluding certain such results to enable the algorithm to only focus on the results that a user is interested in. By using the minus (-) symbol appropriately, you can customize the results that a Google search gives you. For example, you can search “books -reviews” and then Google will exclude book reviews in the results, and give you the other elements of books it finds in the database.
- Google Public Data Explorer.
This is yet another specialized search engine from Google. Apart from the normal searches, the public data explorer gives detailed infographics on the topic that you enter. It is host of reliable and accurate information on most topics, inclusive of statistical and graphical representation of the information. To get on the page, you can google Google Public Data. Once there all you have to do is search your topic of interest, like “Literacy in Kenya”. Google will do the rest. It is somehow related to Google Analytics.
- Google Doodle Games.
They say all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Google gets this pretty well, and offers quite a variety of games that you can relax with on that boring afternoon. There is Pac-Man, which simulates the classic Pac-Man game on the Google logo. There is also Atari Breakout, basketball games, swimming, hurdles, and basically most of the games offered at the Olympics. If you just search Google Doodle ‘game’, you are most likely to be directed to the game that you want. You can also have fun with Google Guitar, or Google Mirror.
Narrowing down Google’s features to a top 5 is just an impossibility, there are so many to consider. There are the mainstream such as Google Translate, Google Define, Google Scholar, Google Maps, Google News, Google Calender, Google Gravity, Google Finance…to the more outlandish and extreme such as Google Project Loon. Project Loon aims to provide internet access to the less fortunate through balloons suspended in the stratosphere, up to altitudes of 32kms.
