14 DAY TRIAL // Android enthusiasts living in the Middle East will be happy to know that Google has finally launched its Voice Search application in the region. Arabic and Hebrew languages are now available for Android users to experiment with.
Voice Search for Android allows users to search the Internet and the phone by voice, instead of typing. The application offers users the possibility to use Voice Actions to call their contacts, get direction and do a lot more stuff with the phone.
With support for Arabic and Hebrew users in Lebanon, Qatar, Kuwait, Egypt and Jordan will now be able to take advantage of Google’s Voice Search application speaking their native languages.
According to Google, the addition of Arabic and Hebrew support brings the number of languages supported by Voice Search to 29 in 37 countries.
However, it appears that Google encountered some problems while adding support for Arabic and Hebrew, especially given the complexities of these languages:
“When building support for Arabic and Hebrew into our language model we faced some unique challenges, including how to understand words with diacritics (accents that indicate a difference in pronunciation, a linguistic phenomenon called “Nikud” in Hebrew, and “Tashkil” in Arabic) and words appended with other words (“and” for example) that can have many different nuanced meanings.”
Even if the system is not 100% accurate at launch, it will become more accurate as more people use the Voice Search application, thanks to Google’s cloud-based model.
In order to train its system, Google stated that it collected over one million utterances in Arabic and Hebrew using the languages that are spoken in most crowded areas of each country.
Voice Search 2.1.4 for Android is now available as a free download via Android Market and is compatible with all devices running Android 2.2 Froyo and up.
