Google rolled out a new search tool on Tuesday that is designed to help Web users more easily find public data that is often hidden in hard-to-navigate government Web sites.

The tool, called Google Public Data, aims to make public data searchable and viewable in graph form. The company is starting with population and unemployment data from around the US but promises to make far more data sets searchable in the future.

Other data sets, such as emissions statistics from the Environmental Protection Agency, will roll out in the coming months.

The tool is something that many Washington public interest groups and government watchdogs have as it will open up federal data to the public.

The visualization technology used is called Trendalyzer, which Google acquired from a company called Gapminder two years ago.

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