Search engines have revolutionized the way we think, live and work. You type in any topic you want to research and these miraculous devices scan millions of web pages and bring back the most relevant ones for you to browse. These pages include research papers, product announcements or even press releases that contain your target keywords. Though the search could take all of one second, the problem is your search could return a minimum of thousands of pages. This could be an absolutely overwhelming situation, especially if what you are looking for happens to be No.12,000 on the list.

The very efficiency of search engines have now become its Achilles heel and researchers are working hard towards revolutionizing search technology yet again.

The most common trend is towards personalizing search engines to suit the individual user. This means if an IT professional keys in the word ?mouse?, the search engine will turn up relevant information related only to PC devices and not about the four-legged variety of mouse.

Another software agent called QueryTracker is being developed to look for information of recurring interest. It sits between the conventional search engine and the user and works by submitting the user's query to the search engine automatically once a day. The new search results that are generated are from new Web pages. Over time, it tracks the users priorities and interests and sends the search results to the user after filtering it for relevance.

Search Engines that scan images are expected to among the major upgrades that will soon be available Searches based on Voice Recognition & Emotion Understanding are also on the horizon. Computers are set to become more understanding of speech and will apply the most suitable word to the sound made by the user.

Streaming Media Search Engines already exist but they have yet to take off.