The search engine problem: Lack of 'knowledge'

Google has created a 500-million-item database of people, places, and things. The results of the effort will start appearing today in search, offering encyclopedic capsules of information on various topics.

These screenshots are from Google's press materials announcing the project, called the Knowledge Graph.

By way of introduction, Google points out that the current search engine is quite good and finding results even if the query is spelled wrong. But the results could be better.