Google is providing iPhone owners with means to search everything they could possibly want through speech. An update to the free Google Mobile App will enable it to sense when the user wants to do a voice search, through the built in accelerometer, according to an YouTube demonstration of the app.
A NY Times report reveals that Google researchers have achieved this by adding sophisticated voice recognition technology to the Google app available for free download via the iTunes App Store. If you need to find out things, like where is the nearest restaurant, you actually ask the phone “where is the nearest StarBucks” and Google Search will instantly produce results. Best of all, the results are based on your location.
So, whether you live in San Francisco, New York, or UK, the same question is answered differently by the Google Mobile App, which senses your location. Not to worry, though - you can still do your text searches, and even use the app's convenient suggestions and options to zero in on something.
It has been revealed in the NY Times report that Google’s advantage in this field is the ability to store and analyze vast amounts of data. “Whatever they introduce now, it will greatly increase in accuracy in three or six months,” said Raj Reddy, an artificial intelligence researcher at Carnegie Mellon University, who has done pioneering work in voice recognition. “It’s important to understand that machine recognition will never be perfect,” he added. “The question is, How close can they come to human performance?”
As noted above, the app will sense when the user picks up the iPhone to do a voice search. Using the accelerometer of the iPhone, the Google Mobile App will turn on its voice recognition feature, and will prepare to do a thorough web search when the user places the device to their ear. The update is expected to arrive in the App Store as soon as this Friday. The Google Mobile App is free to download on your iPhone or iPod touch running firmware 2.0 or later.
Find us on Google+
No user comments yet.
Be the first to express your opinion!
