Google Is Taking Spoken Questions 94
The New York Times is reporting that Google has added a voice interface to their iPhone search software. Expected to make its debut as early as Friday, users will be able to speak into their phone and ask any question they could type into Google's search engine. The audio will be digitized and results will be returned via the normal search interface. "Google is by no means the only company working toward more advanced speech recognition capabilities. So-called voice response technology is now routinely used in telephone answering systems and in other consumer services and products. These systems, however, often have trouble with the complexities of free-form language and usually offer only a limited range of responses to queries."
Android Voice Recognition (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Good voice transcription? (Score:3, Interesting)
Works pretty well for me, I can type at slow speaking speed.
Yep, I can talk a lot faster than I can type too. That's why I'd be excited if Google would release this goldarn software for the rest of us.
My point isn't "oh noes, this is for the iPhone", it's "why don't they let more than just iPhone users take advantage of this, dagnabbit?"
Re:Speech recognition (Score:3, Interesting)
i've used a few voice input systems for paying cellphone bills over the phone, and they've always worked decently in my experience. however, my dad, who has a pretty heavy accent, doesn't get the same results as i do, which is why i have to pay his phone bills for him.
i guess it just depends on the implementation. i find voice inputs to be far more convenient than touch tone systems for over the phone payment systems. they're easier to navigate, feel more natural, and definitely work much better than T-Mobile's online payment system--which is always down or incredibly slow.
i'd be interested in seeing how Google does with this system. perhaps they'll eventually deploy it for Android phones as well.
I already have this! (Score:1, Interesting)