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Comment by rm_-rf_slash | Hacker News Reader

This is pretty cool, but it would really impress me if it could autocomplete facts based on contexts. I wish I could open a text editor and begin writing while Anycomplete(-plus) crawled the web for links to factual data based on the writing so far. Otherwise the context switching is time-consuming and discouraging.

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Google actually already does this, based on what you just searched for.

Search for "swing", then in the search box, delete that and type in "play". It'll auto-complete with something like "playground swing".

Now in a new tab, search for "music". Then delete that and search for "play". You'll get different results.

(doesn't work with the browser search box, has to be the one in the page itself)

Interesting. Not working with Firefox on Android, but I'm curious to check this when I'm next on a desktop.

That seems both really cool and absolutely terrifying. Automatically find references when writing a tutorial? Hell yes! Automatically find references to support an argument you've decided to make? Hmm... maybe not a win for journalism.

[edit] Actually, I guess the way you described it, it could go the other way. You start writing some argument, and google shows you some stats that show you're wrong, or something. That would be neat.

People will find the sources to support their argument regardless.

What are the privacy implications of this? Is there a duck duck go version?

You press the hot key, and a Google search is run.[0] So nothing too frightening. DDG compatibility should be easy. Just swap the endpoint (https://duckduckgo.com/ac/?callback=autocompleteCallback&q=Y...) and parse the JSON.

[0]: https://github.com/nathancahill/anycomplete/blob/master/anyc...

Thanks. Updated the Readme with that information: https://github.com/nathancahill/anycomplete/blob/master/READ...

Spotlight already does this. Type in 'aurora borealis' and it'll pull a wiki blurb (or maybe definition).

DEVONsphere does something close to that. It does a simple keyword analysis and searches local/web. But what you are describing is more of a personal research assistant that's way beyond what today's system can do.

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