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Google's Mobile Search Results Now Include Videos Of Celebrities Answering Your Questions (techcrunch.com) 63

Google is testing a new feature that will allow celebrities and other notable figures to answer users' search queries directly in the form of "selfie" videos posted in the Google Search results. From a report: The company says this program is initially being piloted on mobile with a handful of people for now, including Priyanka Chopra, Will Ferrell, Tracee Ellis Ross, Gina Rodriguez, Kenan Thompson, Allison Williams, Nick Jonas, Mark Wahlberg, James Franco, Seth MacFarlane, Jonathan Yeo and Dominique Ansel. Of course, the celebs aren't answering users' queries in real-time. Instead, Google has had them pre-record their videos in response to what it already knows are some of fans' most-asked questions typed into the Google search box.
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Google's Mobile Search Results Now Include Videos Of Celebrities Answering Your Questions

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  • by dasgoober ( 2882045 ) on Thursday December 07, 2017 @01:53PM (#55696987)

    "What is fellatio?"

  • by QuietLagoon ( 813062 ) on Thursday December 07, 2017 @01:56PM (#55697019)
    Wow, I get to hear a celeb drone on and on, taking twenty times longer to convey the answer to me than it would take for me to read the answer. Sign me up! :)
    • Think about it from the celebrity's point of view, though... they get asked the same questions over and over every time they interact with their fans, and if they don't answer in a friendly way as if it's the first time that oh-so-fascinating question has been asked... a twitter-mob forms to harass them for it.

      So they sit down on camera and answer the most common questions, once, and maybe they don't have to answer those same questions as often for the rest of their careers.

      • OK...and that's kind of the bargain people enter into when their whole life depends on having a camera jammed in their face. That is to say, I don't give a fuck about their convenience for the same reasons I don't give a fuck about what restaurant they were seen dining at and with whom.
        • >I don't give a fuck about their convenience for the same reasons I don't give a fuck about what restaurant they were seen dining at and with whom.

          And that is a depressingly uncommon attitude. Celebrities and their fans generate sufficient economic activity that there's a lot of interest in ignoring your preferences.

  • An I would want this why? Even if I was a fan of the celebrity I can't think of anything more annoying than to sit though a video rather than read the answer in a quarter of the time.
    • This way you get it from the horses.... errmmm... the celebrity's mouth, not second- or third-hand.
      • This way you get it from the horses.... errmmm... the celebrity's mouth, not second- or third-hand.

        "Ok google, what is spice-vdagent?"

        "Hi, this is Seth McFarland. Thanks for asking your excellent question. Spice vee-dee agent is a demon that ... and remember to watch 'The Orville' on Fox Thursdays at 9, 8 central."

        How is that not second-hand?

        If I aks google a question about a celebrity, I expect an answer about the celebrity, not a celebrity video.

      • julia roberts is deeply offended by your comment.

  • Gawd no! And btw "Priyanka Chopra" sounds like an exotic fish meal I'd order in a fancy restaurant.

  • And zero fucks were given about these "celebrities". Who the fuck are they and why are they important?

    I'd rather have a _real_ conversation with a teacher or minister to understand today's real problems ... not some invented first world "problem."

    • >Who the fuck are they and why are they important?

      This isn't for you. I agree that celebrity worship is silly, but that won't make it go away. Fans have wallets, that makes celebrities important. Fans make or break celebrities' careers... so this happens.

  • If I'm forced to watch celebrity videos when doing searches on Google, I will no longer do searches on Google. Plenty of other search engines out there. Problem solved.
    • Really? Of all of the problems with Google search, this is the one that would make you stop using it?

  • Is Global Warming real?

  • Why?? Do people really want this? I am genuinely surprised that this is a thing.

  • Get motion capture of their faces making a battery of sounds, along with their voice making a battery of sounds.

    Couple that with enhanced text to speech logic to map the text to those sounds and you could have them answer any question.

    I think it's Apple that has some ad with emoji faces mimicking you in a fancy text message.

    Same concept, just with real people faces and their voices.

    • Get motion capture of their faces making a battery of sounds, along with their voice making a battery of sounds. Couple that with enhanced text to speech logic

      Wasn't that the premise behind 'Max Headroom' -- the use of CGI actors replacing real humans? It was the basis for some sci-fi universe.

      • by dkman ( 863999 )

        Yes, I don't remember if it was Max Headroom, but that was in something.

        I guess in Google's case, however, someone could find a way to get the actor saying something embarrassing and record that.

  • RTFA (Score:4, Informative)

    by cogeek ( 2425448 ) on Thursday December 07, 2017 @02:48PM (#55697383)
    All you panic button hitting doomsdayers that are terrified this will ruin your precious Google search, go RTFA. It's celebrities posting videos answering the most common questions they get asked about themselves. It's canned video, not interactive and it won't answer any and every question you ask it with a celebrity. It's celebrities promoting themselves no different than they do on Twitter. This won't affect the average Google user in the slightest.
  • reason to turn off javascript and only whitelist sites.

  • This just sounds terrible.
  • by Anonymous Coward

    It doesn't even autoload, it's just the top hit (obviously) when you enter that exact phrase listed. Jesus, sometimes you wanna be contrarians will freak out over the smallest shit. Is it really being analytical or contrarian if you have nothing to say???

  • Honesty, who in the hell thought this was a good idea? Just from a war logistics standpoint you're only going to be answer few special questions. And paying celebrities to do this is going to get very expensive very fast. And beyond that, what benefit will this be for me to have a video playing that eats my mobile bandwidth instead of just letting me read the text that will be displayed on my screen now?
  • ... answered my question: No!

    And then something about a restraining order.

  • Why does it seem like celebrities are among the world's worst people?

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