Things Not Strings -- Google Launches Knowledge Graph
As someone who has done research in the field, I can tell you - this is the future of search, and the key to true AI.  Once we have a knowledge graph of the world, you will be able to ask questions and get answers, not documents.  This will allow <i>so</i> much more automation - personal assistants like Siri will be able to "book me a room in San Francisco with a view of the ocean" or "give me a list of the schools all the children of American presidents went to" and so on.<p>There is an arms war here between Bing and Google - we can thank Microsoft for pressuring Google into making this happen sooner than they otherwise would have.