Trailing Bread Crumbs Online
posted by:Jason Millar // 11:16 AM // June 29, 2005 // TechLife
Our smart worlds will automatically become smarter and more closely tailored to our individual needs in direct response to our own activities.Andy Clark, Natural Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies, and the Future of Human Intelligence
Andy Clark's prediction is realized in Google's new Personalized Search function that was released this week. Users can log onto the Personalized Search engine to perform regular Google searches. However, Google has designed a memory into its tool that keeps track of the kinds of topics you have searched for, in an attempt to modify future search results to better match your typical interests.
Here's an example. I logged into the system with my newly created Google account, and performed a search on "spam". Spam emails are a hot topic, which was reflected in the list returned by Google--everything from anti-spam programs to articles discussing attempts to increase legal actions against "spammers". I then performed a search on "meat", then one on "bologna", after which I re-entered the "spam" search. This time the top link was one to the company that produces the canned meat product "Spam". I also had quick access to sites dedicated to the wonders of Spam, including recipes and message boards containing everything Spam.
Google's Personalized Search, it would seem, learns about my interests and tendencies and modifies its results to suit them. Is this an example, as Andy Clark would argue, of a technology that acts transparently as an extension of me?
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