Kiwi maps Google’s search future

Blenheim-raised Craig Nevill-Manning - Google's New York-based director of engineering - is one half of New Zealand's preeminent tech power couple (his wife, Kirsten Nevil-Manning is Facebook's head of HR). 

He's also one of Google's earliest and most influential employees. While still at the University of Canterbury, Nevill-Manning co-wrote a paper on how to create compressed full-text indexing - a revolutionary breakthrough in search.

Nevill-Manning went on to pursue post-doctoral studies at Stanford University in California, where he met PhD students Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

The pair were already aware of Nevill-Manning's research, and drew on it when they created the original Google search engine, launched in 1999 - and indeed the technology is still at its heart today.

Nevill-Manning initially thought Google a bit of a risky venture, and declined Page and Brin's initial invitation to join - but did come onboard a couple of years later, when new employees were still being offered shares for around US30c (today they're trading around $US540).

I spoke to the Google engineering director by phone ahead of his appearance at the Canterbury Software Summit (by video) on September 8.

The summit is part of the Rutherford Innovation Showcase - an NZICT-organised series of high-tech events timed to coincide with the Rugby World Cup.

A Star Trek analogy is the fastest way to a technology journalist’s heart, and Craig Nevilll-Manning is quick to make one as he described Google’s future search strategy.

The search giant already offers a basic response to voice-command search – useful if, say, you’re on a hands free mobile (running Google Android, naturally).

As Google’s director of engineering, Kiwi expat Dr Nevill-Manning is looking to take this to the next step: voice-command search that can answer any data request.

Today, "if you have a question where the answer sits on a web page, Google works pretty well," Nevill-Manning said.

"But if you have a question that requires mining information from lots of different places – even something as simple as I want to buy a new car; what are the specifications and how much will I spend on each one?- pretty soon you’ve got a piece of paper out beside the computer jotting stuff down, or you’re opening a spreadsheet if you’re a bit nerdier.

"It’s pretty unsatisfactory. Google helps you find individual pieces but it doesn’t help you pull them together."

But the search engine can, Nevill-Manning believes, boldly go toward pulling answers from structured data.

"What I think we’re heading towards – and this is a bit tongue and cheek – is something a little bit like the Star Trek computer where Captain Picard would say to the computer, 'Show me the closest M-class planet that have this species inhabited'.

"That kind of question that allows a computer to access a lot of different kinds of information and combine them in some way and make a deduction and give you a coherent answer maybe as voice or maybe a visualisation."

Can Nevill-Manning make it so?

Yes, but his timeframe is five to 10 years.

Practical help for Christchurch
Nevill-Manning is a frequent visitor home to New Zealand – he’s been home three times this year, with a fourth trip planned.

A recent project has been donating time and expertise to help an effort to create a tech hub in Christchurch, along with fellow Google-ista Chris Coleman, who specialises in setting up campuses. The idea is that Epic (Enterprise Precinct and Innovation Campus) could house 400 to 700 staff from tech companies temporarily displaced by the quake. Long term, it could help them collaborate, and the city recover. Epic has also been the recipient of the first Google Chromebooks (laptops that use only online software) outside the US.

Dr Nevill-Manning is delivering the keynote at the Canterbury Software Summit on September 8 – by video link from New York. He asked NBR what it’s experience was with videoconferencing links from overseas. Your correspeondent sharply drew air threw his teeth and winced. “It’s incredibly important that [Pacific Fibre] cable happens,” the Google engineer responded.

"Videoconferencing is one thing that benefits New Zealand disproportionately and that New Zealanders should be world experts at."