Google search's new basic calculator

http://www.google.com/search?q=calculator

by gnyman • 14 years ago

76 67 14 years ago

google.com

peterwiese• 14 years ago

where?

DeepDuh• 14 years ago

I don't get it either. Maybe only US IPs?

fromhet• 14 years ago

Red Swede reporting in: only get a usual search query

rwmj• 14 years ago

It's working for me from the UK. I can't imagine why Google would want to geolocate this. Perhaps they've only partially rolled it out to some of their datacenters?

duplabe• 14 years ago

Works from Hungary.

JadeNB• 14 years ago

aristidb (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4308149) reports that you have to be searching in English (which can be done manually with `hl=en`).

lvh• 14 years ago

% is percentage, not mod (with our without signs). Damn normals!

kappaloris• 14 years ago

would be nice if you could use the keyboard

danabramov2• 14 years ago

Interesting how Microsoft and Google have different ideas of how percentage key (%) should work.

Relevant post by Raymond Chen:

“How does the [Windows] calculator percent key work?”

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2008/01/10/70474...

Implementing % button, Google chose an approach which is more mathematically sensible but arguably less obvious to users. For Google, 10% just an alias for 0.1. This means that if you want to calculate how much a dress with a price of $299 costs with a 20% discount, type in

  299 + 299 × 20%

Perhaps, this is exactly how you think % should work.

Microsoft, however, chose to make “%” key more user-friendly, perhaps sacrificing some consistency. Windows calculator tries to use the last computed value as “the whole”. Therefore,

  299 - 20%

will give you how much a $299 dress costs with 20% discount, and

  299 + 5% - 20%

will help you calculate 5% tax before applying the discount.

Sadly, Google thinks

  500 + 1% = 500.01

which is really not that helpful.

elisee3• 14 years ago

I just tested it and the percent key in the Google calculator doesn't work like the one described in the linked article. It really just divides by 100.

3 + 5% = 3 + 0.05 = 3.05

danabramov2• 14 years ago

Sorry, I just reworded my comment to make it more clear.

This article is about Windows calculator and I'm comparing two different approaches.

Google went with simple 10% = 0.1 here, like you say.

scotty79• 14 years ago

The way Microsoft did it is the same way most physical calculators I've seen work.

Spittie• 14 years ago

I don't get it, if i try 500 + 1% on Google i get 505 http://sadpanda.us/images/1112074-RA9OURZ.png

bricestacey• 14 years ago

You get a different result if you click the buttons versus performing a google search.

MattBearman3• 14 years ago

What a complete load of shit. You have to actually click the numbers, you can't use your computer's keyboard. Google, I am disappoint.

Kwpolska• 14 years ago

Don’t forget that the preferred method to do calculations with google is to put them into the search box.

elisee3• 14 years ago

You can type your calculation as a google query and you'll get the result. This calculator is designed for people looking for a mouse- / touch-based UI.

MattBearman3• 14 years ago

I'll admit that as I'm using my laptop touch devices didn't occur to me, just tried it on my phone and actually it works really well with touch.

But when on a non-touch device, even if you click on the calculator, focus remains on the search input, that seems like a massive UX failure to me.

ConstantineXVI2• 14 years ago

Note that the iPad doesn't ship with a calculator app.

(Equally annoying, Android doesn't have a simple stopwatch/timer built in.)

aristidb• 14 years ago

Link that works for people with non-English Google:

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=calculator

(The link is setting the language to English for just that search.)

jacobr• 14 years ago

Thanks, I wonder why they would only enable this for English searches?

Semaphor2• 14 years ago

They always test new stuff on their English sites first.

Semaphor2• 14 years ago

ha, I wondered why I got the old interface when my normal searches give me the new one;) I have chrome set to go to the English site;)

Thanks.

gnyman• 14 years ago

thanks, I tried to double check that the url would work for everyone but did not think about the automatic redirect to local the local google

JosephHatfield• 14 years ago

Bah, humbug! If it's not RPN, it's crap! :)

gaving2• 14 years ago

Interesting, works for:-

http://www.google.com/search?q=9/10

But not:-

http://www.google.com/search?q=9/11

Also seems like it could be much smaller, since it's following this increasing trend to devote less and less screen real-estate to search results.

TeMPOraL• 14 years ago

My guess is 9/11 was if-ed out; if someone types that into a query, one most likely wants to see results related to WTC attack.

rabidsnail2• 14 years ago

They could have generalized that based on result CTR.

djtriptych3• 14 years ago

You can force a calculator result with an equals sign:

http://www.google.com/search?q=9/11=

gburt• 14 years ago

This is Google trying to outsmart you. It thinks you're searching for Sept. 11 if you type 9/11. It happens quite regularly with other queries, add a = sign to force the calculator.

jwilliams• 14 years ago

I noticed there is also a new visual interface for unit conversions. e.g. https://www.google.com/search?q=1kg%20in%20lbs

Achshar• 14 years ago

That is to say there was one earlier. It used to be just result, no interface.

benjoffe• 14 years ago

That's still an interface (perhaps I'm being a bit too technical).

mitakas• 14 years ago

And then, there are units and bc.

acomjean• 14 years ago

the often forgotten unix, linux command line calculators I use all the time.

bc -l

or for those who like rpn

cynusx• 14 years ago

I just fire up irb these days

ilija139• 14 years ago

I just use spotlight

gaving2• 14 years ago

builtin zcalc's good if you're a zsh user:-

    seth:~% which calc
    calc: aliased to noglob zcalc
    seth:~% calc ((8*8)/8)*8
    64

djtriptych3• 14 years ago

python -i

ck2• 14 years ago

Unfortunately if you use google without javascript this is a pain as it does not fall back to the inline calculator.

If anyone knows or figures out a url option to make it do the old inline math, please let me know ?

damoncali• 14 years ago

Also cool: In Chrome, type "0xff in decimal" in the address bar.

"=255" appears as one of the suggested searches.

shrikant• 14 years ago

This happens for basic calculation really, for which Google spits out an answer. And since it's a feature of Google Suggest, it also works in Firefox.

herrturtur• 14 years ago

That's pretty cool. The only thing I'd change is to make it clearer that the top left button switches between rad and deg.

webmonkeyuk• 14 years ago

Your submission seems to be doing better than mine from earlier in the week http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4295093

scottfr• 14 years ago

Shameless plug:

I would like you to check out the calculator I built:

http://herocalc.com

It's pure Javascript, has a full parser/tree-builder to process equations, allows you to define functions and variables, and is very fast.

It also installs a search handler so you can do calculations from your search bar.

AstroJetson• 14 years ago

So 299+5% and/or 299+(5%) to figure the sales tax does not work at all, it just says "Your equation has an error. Please correct it." and no hint to what the error is.

Sorry, not ready for prime time

ubershmekel• 14 years ago

I'm holding my breath for "stopwatch".

sodelate• 14 years ago

google is not just a search engine

madrona• 14 years ago

I bet they are doing this to collect data on my favorite numbers! Don't bubble my calculations, Google!

bakhlawa• 14 years ago

I couldn't help but wonder how much traffic is lost by online-calculator.com, the first search result...

imrehg• 14 years ago

There's also graphical calculator, or is that not a new thing? I don't remember seeing it before. For example: http://goo.gl/uSSWW

gojomo• 14 years ago

Meanwhile, Bing still doesn't do rate calculations that have worked at Google for years, like:

  1GB / 1 hour
  500km / 1.5 hours in mph

georgemcbay• 14 years ago

Pretty cool, but why doesn't pressing equal again repeat the last step? Eg. on any decent calculator if you press:

2, x, 2, =

You get 4.

Press = again, you get 8, and so on.

As insignificant as this may seem, lack of this in a calculator is a complete showstopper problem for me.

yumraj• 14 years ago

9^9^9 = Infinity and 9^9^9^9 gives Error :)

Google search's new basic calculator

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