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.'"

Comments

WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

lend a lend a voice?

Do Slashdot editors submit stories with voice recognition software?

Coming Soon?

[afaik_ianal]

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.

Not useful for me...

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt speaking the word "sex" to my pc at work will get me a raise anytime soon... I'll stick with traditional methods of finding my porn... =)

Not necessarily voice search

[Crayon Kid]

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?

Re:Not necessarily voice search

[afaik_ianal]

Now which is it?

If you had bothered to RTFP, you'd know :P. The patent doesn't explicitly say what type of data you are searching - it just says that it generates a list of weighted hypothesis for what the searcher may have said (i.e. a bunch of text strings with probabilities attached), and forwards them on to a (text-based) search engine.

I'd say they are intending for this to interface with any of the existing google searches (web, images, news, etc). Your idea of searching audio, while interesting, would be completely separate to this patent - if you could generate text indices for the audio files (voice recognition on the audio files), then you could apply this patent.

This patent certainly makes no attempt to provide audio files in the results based on sounds that are similar to the user's audio request.

Google Voice Search

[tehshen]

Haven't they already done a thing like this before? Maybe they've only just patented it. Either way I don't see a story here.

Supporting vague patents supports terrorism

[BadAnalogyGuy]

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.

Make sure you don't say "hello" to it

[LiquidCoooled]

Especially from the image search page.

You have been warned.

Voice Matching

[UnseenLlama]

Great! Now the government will be able to not only track my search results...but also attach my voice to it! Not that I'm scared or anything...

Privacy Issues

[RootsLINUX]

In the library...

Google Voice: Please state what it is that you would like to search for.
MAN (whispering): .....porn
GV: I'm sorry, I did not understand you. Please state your search item again.
MAN (whispering): ...porn
GV: I'm sorry, I did not understand you. Please state your search item again.
MAN (whispering): porn
GV: I'm sorry, I did not understand you. Please state your search item again.
MAN (shouting): PORN! I want to search for PORN you stupid ass computer!
(stares from every person in the vicinity)
GV: ...Search item confirmed. Commencing search for "porn".

Just think of all the entertaining stories that wide-spread voice recognition will bring us ^_~

Perhaps not what people first guess...

[sreekotay]

My first read (after reading the ARTICLE :P) is that this isn't voice recognition - its the old "wisdom of croweds" thing.

I always found Google's "Did you mean ____?" to be better than any spell checker (pretty sure its a distance metric thing based on LOTS of mistyped input and follow-up for real users) - don't see a reason why that couldn't apply to voice...

(non-trivially, probably, but still)
--
graphicallyspeaking

Three Wise Monkeys

[ettlz]

MEMO: Google morality checklist

1. See no evil. Check, moderate SafeSearch is on.
2. Hear no evil. We're still coding the filter, but so far we've managed to eliminate "cocksucker" from the recognition patterns.
3. Do no evil.

Prior art from the handicapped ?

[MajorDick]

I know of 2 people that have been searching the internet from voic command for over 6 years now.

Is this prior art ?
Google is OBVIOUSLY not the first to do it or even think of it.
I can show you a half dozen Sc-Fi episode that have touched on this as well.
How can you patent a communication medium's use ????

I can't wait..

[William Robinson]

My boss always uses words like 'shit', 'hell', 'sucks', 'piecce of shit', 'fsck' and so on..

I can't wait to see his face when google toolbar will start throwing pages at him.

European Quaero.

[magli]

I was almost sure that I had read something about a EC funded "google-killer" search engine being developed in europe, which planned to do this. Sure enough:

Attack of the Eurogoogle (Need subscription).
No subscription needed here
From the article:

researchers at the University of Karlsruhe are developing Quaero's voice-recognition and translation technology, with funding from the European Commission. [...] In addition, speaker-identification software will allow users (via computer microphones) to search the internet for audio clips recorded in their own voices, or those of other speakers.

Revenge of the Nerds

[aplusjimages]

I think they meant Lamda Lamda Lamda. What a great movie.

Re:Google Pronounce - not just vox searches

[MORTAR_COMBAT!]

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.

I've Seen this Episode

[carrier lost]

Kirk: Computer, get me coordinates to Alpha Centari!

Computer: Did you mean: coordinates to alpha centauri

Kirk: Yes, yes, okay.

Computer: Alpha Centauri Alpha Centauri B is much brighter than Alpha Centauri C but still alot weaker than A. ... The coordinates for these stars are: ... www.eso.org/outreach/eduoff/edu-prog/catchastar/CA S2002/cas-projects/nether_alphacen_1/astrofacts.ht ml - 15k - Cached - Similar pages

Kirk: What? Quick! Oh, OH KAY! for Pete's sake!

Spock: Captain, you get better results if you say, 'I'm feeling lucky'

MjM

google labs demo

[rednuhter]

they have a demo (currently down) http://labs1.google.com/gvs.html

To try out this demo, please follow these simple steps:

1. Pick up the phone and call the automated voice search system at (650) 623-6706.

2. After the prompt Say your Search Keywords, say your query to the system.

3. Click this link and a new window will open with your voice search results.

4. Say another query, and the new window with the search results will be updated with the new results.

Oblig Futurama

[TCQuad]

My internet browser heard us saying the word Fry and it found a movie about Philip J. Fry for us. It also opened my calendar to Friday and ordered me some french fries.