Google has a new Google Labs experiment out called Talk Guru. Google describes it as:
Application intended for chat (IM) users, including users using chat clients on low-end phones, allowing them to answer simple web queries from the context of their chat application. First invite [email protected] to chat, and then send queries via your chat client. Categories supported include weather, translation, unit and currency conversions, and sports scores. Send “help” for more information.
Common thinking is that this is somehow related to Aardvark, the social Q&A service Google acquired last year. We’ve yet to hear from Google about that.
When you sign up for Talk Guru, it becomes part of your Gmail experience within Chat. It doesn’t appear to be incredibly sophisticated, and I have a hard time seeing how this will be any more useful than simply searching at any point in time. Here are some examples of the kinds of things it’s supposed to be able to return.
I didn’t have much luck finding any info about the upcoming Final Four. “Well, it hasn’t happened yet,” I thought. “Surely ‘elite 8’ will yield better results”. Not so much. “Kentucky score?” Nope.
That said, it is just an experimental project in its early stages, and it is intended more for low-end phones.