A lot is happening in the Google headquarters. From acquisitions to new features; Google is on fire. All in all, we expect a mega boost in the consumer search experience. The benefits would most likely be seen in web  and image search.  A clue Google is indeed headed in this direction:

“It has been confirmed that Google has acquired Like.com a comparison shopping site.  Like.com uses the Riya image recognition technology. This is a more elaborate image search process than what Google already uses. In addition to comparison shopping, Like.com team has ventured into many different avenues of fashion and e-commerce with products like, What to wear, Covet.com, Weardrobe, etc  This acquisition will help in developing the Google product search. Moreover, Google will have access to the much sought after Riya technology. This will further enhance the image search service.”

The more frequently-used web search is also up for improvements. Another possible feature will allow users to check out search results in real time. This means that as you type, the search results of the typed content are displayed and updated live. You can get a better idea from this video. This discovery of this feature, as reported by Venture Beat:

The new experiment was discovered by search engine optimization (SEO) consultant Rob Ousbey, who noticed the results being delivered instantly and then recorded a video to show it. Google confirmed to TechCrunch that the video is real. It will be interesting to see if the new capability is launched as a standard part of Google’s search engine. It could save us all time as we type familiar searches where we know that the instantly-delivered search result is most likely the one we want to click on.

As great as this feature seems, only time will tell whether the real-time search results feature can withstand slow computer processing speeds and limited bandwidth.  Other issues involve consumer uptake of the constant stream of new features Google anxiously tries out.  With real time trends taking over various aspects of search, Google must find more ways to incorporate these into its branching search tools.