• Mashable, Tuesday, November 9, 2010 11:07 AM

Perhaps feeling the pressure from search aspirants, Google has launched Instant Previews, which lets users view Web pages before they visit them. When a user clicks or hovers over a magnifying glass icon, a screenshot of a specific Web page will appear on the right side of the search results page. Rival search engines have offered such "instant" viewing features for years. Yet, "The key element to Instant Previews though is that Google highlights the section of the page where the search term occurs," notes Mashable.

"This is the next evolution of finding a result on a search engine results page," engineer Ben Gomes tells Mashable. Gomes said Instant Previews are especially useful when users are trying to determine whether specific charts, graphs or pictures are just what they're looking for. Also, with Instant Preview, users can quickly scan pages to see if they're about particular people they're looking for. Furthermore, as Gomes tells Mashble, Instant Previews is a natural progression for "the evolution of speed."

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