Google has released a search box tool for Macs that it believes will eventually make searching outside the browser a breeze.
In a Google blog posting, the company revealed that it is interested in beta testers willing to participate in taking the Google Quick Search Box from an "experimental" state to a fully formed powerful search tool.
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The blog post reads: "One of our goals at Google is to make your search experience as fluid as possible. While much of our work is focused on Google.com, we're trying to make it just as easy to search outside your browser.
"For the last year, we have been working on a new, open-source quick search box. Today, we are releasing our first developer preview for the Mac."
The posting, written by Google Mac Team members Nicholas Jitkoff and Dave MacLachlan, adds the search box is still at the "experimental" stage.
"This Mac version is much more experimental than its iPhone sibling, Google Mobile App, and through it you will be able to see many of the areas we are exploring: contextual search, actions, and extensibility. It is by no means feature-complete, but is a very good indication of things to come.
"If you are interested in participating in our experiment, head over to the Google Code site and give it a try. We are eager to involve users in the development process and will be posting new builds frequently. Over the coming months we'll be posting a few articles about the architecture and interaction we are exploring, and we look forward to your feedback."
A quick-start guide for the Quick Search Box offers further information including current compatibility issues with Firefox and Gmail.
Google Quick Search Box requires Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard.
Google currently offer a Google Mobile App for iPhone, introduced in November, which lets you do a Google Web search using only your voice.
Macworld UK is an InfoWorld affiliate.
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