Google today detailed improvements to its main Android and iOS app, Google, specifically related to answering questions. The app is now better at understanding complex questions, which you can ask by typing or speaking. In particular, the Google app can now handle superlatives, ordered items, and dates.
The Google app can “truly understand the meaning of what you’re asking” by breaking down a query to understand the semantics of each piece and figure out the overall intent. Google can then traverse its Knowledge Graph “much more reliably” to get you a more accurate answer.
The question “Who was the US President when the Angels won the World series?” is broken down into four components: the list of presidents, the country, the baseball team, and the World Series winners by year. The first two get a list of presidents of the U.S., while the last two get the year the Angels won the World Series, which in turn give you George W. Bush.
Google offered specific examples of questions that use superlatives, ordered items, and dates the app can now answer:
Who are the tallest Mavericks players?
What are the largest cities in Texas?
What are the largest cities in Iowa by area?
What was the population of Singapore in 1965?
What songs did Taylor Swift record in 2014?
What was the Royals roster in 2013?
What are some of Seth Gabel’s father-in-law’s movies?
What was the U.S. population when Bernie Sanders was born?