Follow
This year’s event focused on finding innovative and talented minds in technology field. It provided them with support in coming up with newer, better tech solutions, devices, and even lifestyles. We’ve already introduced you to Grace Choi’s invention, the 3D make-up printer. Now, besides Choi, 27 other competing start-ups showcased their products. The shortlist included6 finalists, which did their best to convince the jury that their vision on the future deserves to become part of our everyday reality. The winner was Vurb, a new web and mobile contextual search engine. Its innovations are so brilliantly simple and efficient that you have to wonder why Google didn’t come up with the idea first. After all, Google has the resources and workforce needed to implement anything, right? So, what is Vurb? How does it work? Let’s hear it from the developers:
If you don’t have the patience to watch the entire presentation, here’s a sum-up of the conclusions. Basically,
When you type a query in Vurb, you get everything you need without having to leave the search engine. The company is rolling out search for Places, Movies, and Media. It will soon launch search for add People, Startups, and others. For example, if you search for a film, you get a trailer, showtimes, reviews, a link to watch the movie on Netflix, the IMDb score and more.
The same goes for Places queries. Say you’re looking for a restaurant: Google will only give you a long list of blue links. You have to go through every single one of them if you want to get a clear picture of the place, or actually make reservations for dinner. You will also have to jump from one open tab to the next, to gather all the data you need.
Vurb provides you with vertical data containing all the available relevant information on a specific topic. So if you are looking for a restaurant, Vurb will provide contact details, ratings, online reservation capacities, and more. It will list nearby places, offer directions and suggest things to do in the area (perhaps you want to take a walk through a park, or see a movie after dinner). You can also check in on Foursquare, see what other venues are in the area, and make other reservations too. All in all, Vurb collects all the web data related to your query and unfolds it all before your very eyes. At the end of a search query, you walk away with all your needs met, purchases completed, and knowledge enriched.
Analysts say it was high time to step up the search engine game. They almost unanimously welcomed this new web and mobile contextual search engine, but added that Vurb has a long way to go before it becomes a strong competitor for Google or Bing. We’re looking forward to this service developing into a viable alternative for Internet searches.
