Mining Data Effectively: Using Google to Solve Impossible Problems

Of course, if the problems actually have solutions, no matter how difficult they are to solve they are not impossible. But you understand the sentiment. This article by investigative reporter John Tedesco for the San Antonio Express-News recounts a presentation made by Daniel Russell, a Google research scientist, on some truly amazing Google search techniques. He opened up his talk by displaying the following photograph:

and then posing the question, “What’s the phone number of the office where this picture was snapped?”

Let that sink in for a moment. The question has nothing to do with the skyscraper being shown, other than as a reference point for where the photographer was. I consider myself a fairly sophisticated Google user, and I’m most often able to find the information I seek. Clearly, I have been asking much too timid questions. Read the article to see how Russell leads us to the answer using some really clever Google search techniques.

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