Google Will Answer Your Questions Now

Changes are afoot at Google, according to The Wall Street Journal. During the next few months the search engine will start giving facts and direct answers to questions in addition to a list of links. It isn't replacing its keyword-search system, but it is adopting “semantic search,” which will allow the engine to answer questions more like a human would. So if you Google, for example, “Ten largest lakes in California” it might give you the answer instead of linking to sites about lakes. It's partly an attempt to stay ahead of Microsoft's Bing search engine and Apple's voice-activated Siri assistant.