Two patents were recently granted to Google that paint a very interesting picture of the future of search. These patents are: Detect and correct potential errors in user Phone Number List behavior Guided purchase via smartphone Before we dive in, I think it's necessary to point out that the issuance of a patent does not mean that Google will implement everything (or even anything) in it; however, it illustrates the areas they are considering and are willing to invest significant time and money in protection. That said, these two patents contain ideas and technologies that strongly reflect the direction Phone Number List in which Google is currently heading, and they indicate a stronger monetization strategy on mobile and voice devices. In this two-part series, I'll walk you through some of the key points from each patent. Then I'll talk about how information from these to patents combine to paint a picture of a future where research and task completion are vastly different than they are today. In this article, I'll focus on the Phone Number List first patent, " Detecting and Correcting Potential Errors in User Behavior ." To get a sense of the full scope of what Google is aiming for here, I've highlighted excerpts from key sections of the patent, followed by my assessment of those sections. Abstract A computing system predicts a future action to Phone Number List be taken by a user of a computing device and determines, Based on contextual information associated with the Phone Number List computing device, a current action taken by the user. The computer system determines, based on the current action, a degree of probability whether the user will be able to take the future action and predicts, based on the degree of probability, that the user will not unable to take future action. The Phone Number List computing system sends information to the computing device indicating that the current action taken by the user will result in the user not being able to take the future action. In the abstract, we understand that Google intends to take into account what we are doing now and put that into the context of what we are likely to do in the future. If a current action is likely to interfere with an expected future task, the