Google focuses on new interface for searches on mobile phones

Ben Gomes, the India-bred techie who oversees Google’s handling of 100 billion searches a month, believes a new voice-based interface is needed for the next frontier of search centred round mobile phones and tablet computers.

“Now search is becoming mobile - on phones and tablets. The challenge is that it is on a small screen, so it’s hard to type. The opportunity is that it’s got a really good microphone and a touch screen,” he said.

“It can enable a new kind of interface. So we realised we want to build an interface that was much like the way you talk to some person and ask a question,” Gomes said.

And while the Google search app can already respond to questions using voice-based software, Gomes told the BBC that the process is “going to get better and more intelligent”.

The Tanzania-born, India-bred, US-educated vice-president of search is responsible for helping to answer queries in the shortest time possible on desktops, tablets and phones.

Search is Google’s cash cow, bringing in a majority of its USD 50 billion revenues last year. It is also, said Gomes, “about having a continuous conversation with the user to find out what he wants”.

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