Things that can be done with a search box

Ever wondered what can be done with search box of Google. Like many people I used to use it only for searching the net for some information, documents, links, pages, etc... But is it all it is used for? The answers is NO . Quite sometime back(probably years back) I wanted to check for time in San Francisco. I tried to search for its timezone and the difference between that time zone and IST and all the math. But then the search gave me an answer and I was shocked and happy about it. I searched for "time in San Francisco" and the first result was the time in San Francisco right away.

Then I started exploring and using it to get the definitions/meanings of words, currency conversion, movies show timings, unit conversion, weather and a host of other reasons. Google does provide a lot more features and its nice to see that the simple search box can act as the all-in-one tool which can find answers for many day to day requirements.

All the features are clearly explained with an example at Google Search Features page. Its a very useful resource. Now, most of these are also available on other search engines like Y!, Windows Live, etc...