More than One Way

While reading a blurb on the back page of "Smart Libraries" Newsletter, I learned that Google has received a patent to help internet users search by voice-activated devices. [See also This Article for more information]. Additionally, this morning I heard on NPR that there is a website that searches for images online, using only images as opposed to Google, which finds images by matching written descriptions with the words or phrases entered by a user.

Incidentally, Chris would call this kind of unintentional convergence of the same topic "Bigley's Law."

As I learned about these two new ways of searching the internet, I was surprised to realize that no one had done this before. Or, have they, and it never caught on? Is this a breakthrough in Internet Searching, or have search engines finally caught up with the demands of all the normal people out there in space who search the internet on a regular basis? [For more lamentations of how the corporate world does not take all kinds of people into consideration when designing items for consumer use, please see my sister's adventures in pre-wedding purchases.]

So what do you think about these websites and the services they offer?