"The future starts now" for Ask.com.

The site, currently the fourth largest search engine in the U.S., behind Google, Yahoo, and Bing, is readying a major redesign, which begins this week with the launch of a public beta of its new answer technology.

"Ask.com is now uniquely able to offer the most comprehensive and convenient approach to getting answers, combining pages and people to help users find the answers to all questions – even questions for which no answer is published online," senior vice presidents Tony Gentile and Lista Kavanaugh wrote in a blog post.

The new technology features 500 million question and answer pairs, answers from human "experts," and a redesigned user interface. While the site has been touting the redesign since November, it insists that "today's beta release is really just the tip of the iceberg," hinting at more interaction with third-party social networks and increased mobile support.

Users interested in checking out the new site can request an invite from Ask.