Search technology firm Ask Jeeves, Inc. introduced new features to its AskJeeves search engine on Monday. The company announced the beta-launch of Binoculars, a patent-pending site preview tool.
Binoculars lets users preview their search results before clicking through on the links themselves by presenting people with a small binocular-shaped icon next to each link. After rolling over the
icon, users catch a quick glimpse of the page the link will send them to. The intended result is to shorten search time.
Other new features include additions to AsJeeves' SmartSearch,
originally launched in Spring 2003. New SmartSearch functions include quick results for searches on movies, wedding registries, FedEx and UPS tracking numbers, famous people, word definitions and
the nation's terror alert status. These quick results are "best guess" answers that turn up above normal search results, directly below the query.
