An interview with Google's Head of Research

Posted at: Wednesday 12th September 2007 by Sarah Lewthwaite

We recently got the chance to chat to Dr Peter Norvig, Google's Head of Research about where the big G is headed - there's no interest in hardware apparently, but computer vision, face recognition and making sense of the narrative of search are all on the agenda

CPC: We’re at a Learning Technology conference; one problem for teachers is that the learning technologist’s view is often substituted for the learner’s view. What are the processes that allow you to maintain user focus?

Dr Norvig: Part of it is the way you start out, and then you keep going that way, so it’s intertia. Part of it is we have so much data available. We could easily have someone within the company who says ‘I think the right way to go is this’, ‘I think the right way to go is that’. Some of the judgements are right some of the judgements wrong. But in the end we don’t trust anybody’s judgement, we trust the data. If someone thinks something is a good idea, we measure. Is this actually working? If not, we change it.

CPC: Another issue for you as a research division has to be hardware - you're always interacting with users through mediating technologies (PCs, Windows etc), which must create issues, especially, for example, when it comes to accessibility. Do you find it a limiting factor? How do you address that?

Dr Norvig: We think about accessibility more as a usability issue. We like to think about it as adding capability for everyone. If you cut out the curbs it helps wheelchair users - and it also help bicyclists and skateboarders and so on. It’s the same thing with a lot of the accessibility measures; we’re making it better for everyone. Again, we look hard at what are the users problems are, try to solve them, and we measure, is this something that’s working?

CPC: When you look around at current hardware what excites you as a researcher? Is there anything that you have your eye on that’s going to be interesting for the future and the future of Google?

Dr Norvig: It’s clear mobile computing is going to become more important. We’re starting to see new platforms like the iPhone that are interesting, and it’s going to be an issue of infrastructure and hardware. Firstly getting sufficient bandwidth everywhere you go, or enough places where you go, and also having the right hardware. Secondly, having an interaction that’s more natural is important, as right now it’s really very stilted. The number keypad is especially frustrating, and displays are too small. Maybe speech recognition will become important as an input device, maybe touch style interfaces will improve, I don’t know, but it seems like there’s a lot of growth in that space and a lot of interest from users. People want to be freed from their desks and want to be connected wherever they go.

CPC: Google is very much a internet company, and there's an increasing suite of technologies that are now available through Google, but access to you is mediated through other technologies. Is there any research ambition towards hardware?

Dr Norvig: I don’t think so. You know we want to work everywhere and be neutral. That neutrality is important.