How do you see search engines developing in the future?

I really like the direction Google has gone with their context-sensitive searches in Google Now on my Moto X. Without touching my phone, I can ask it…

- How tall is Barack Obama?
– How old is he?
– Who is he married to?

…and it speaks back the answers to me.

I’d like to see more of this. There is some decent info box stuff in Google search in a browser.

I would really love the ability to run sql-like queries against public databases in some way. It would be great if sources could provide an API to Google that would allow users to use sql queries against it.

It is just a glorified card catalogue. In the future we won’t need to look up anything except in emergency.

They’ll start generating output to 3D printers before you even select something.

Wouldn’t it be useful if they indexed our lives and could remind us of who we met and where and what we said and where we had been in minute detail.

This may be off topic, if so I apologize. Besides advanced algorithms making searches more efficient, decreasing component size and increasing memory enhances the possibility for machines to acquire sentience. The ability for machines to network reminds me of a short science-fiction story written in the 1950’s. The tale goes something like this:

Scientists had answered every question they had thought of except one. Now, with the flick of a switch every computer throughout the universe would be linked and that last question could be asked. “Is there a God?” A few moments passed and one scientist began to feel that this was a mistake and reached to turn off the connections. A bolt of electricity leapt from the switch striking him dead, as a voice boomed from the speaker “There is now.”

p.s. Recall that sixty years ago the size of the universe was believed by many to be much smaller that what it is thought to be today.