Slashdot Mirror
Google Voice Search May be Coming Soon
vitaly.friedman writes "The master of text-based search could be looking to lend a voice to Internet users everywhere, or so it appears based on Google's latest patent. Patent #7,027,987, issued today by the US Patent and Trademark Office, covers a 'Voice interface for a search engine.'"
I'd say that if Google had any serious plans to do anything with this, then we would have heard something about it already (something more than a paper written 4 years ago). Although the patent was only just issued today, it was filed over 5 years ago.
It seems like a pretty big logical leap to say that it is "coming soon" based on the fact that the USPTO finally got their butts into gear.
It's probably just an idea they though was cool at the time, and should be patented in case they want to use it some time.
It can be interpreted either way. Either a search engine for audio files with speech recognition, which could be used to index podcasts and news streams; or a voice-driven interface instead of a visual one. Now which is it?
i ate crayons when i was a kid and now i have two braincells and the blue ones taste nicer
Economic terrorism, that is.
Do they mean that they patented using voice recognition software to work with the Search textbox? Is this some sort of technology to take voice waveforms into the search engine and form audio search patterns? Is this about taking a media clip and finding the source media?
What? It's so vague.
I remember that Google had a link that you could dial in and give it a search term. You would then go to their "voice results" page and see what it turned up. I assume that the patent is based on this? I haven't looked at it in a few years and I don't even know if the page is still there, but this really isn't anything new, just that the patent was now granted.
How about:
In general, I think it's customary to at least look at a patent before commenting on its novelty. If you had, you may find that the patent goes a little further than just saying "take search, and add voice recognition". Oh wait - what site am I on again?
GWB: Google, find me some Eye-rain-ee-un New-cue-lar weapons.
Google: Did you mean Ee-rahn-ee-an New-clee-ar weapons?
GWB: Yeah, them's it!
Perhaps if Google had this in operation in 2002, we would not be at war with Iraq over "new, cooler" weapons, but that's what you get for using substandard voice recognition (and substandard presidents), I suppose.
MORTAR COMBAT!