Yet Another Odd (as in cool) Tech Story To Discuss

So, after my Valve post, I looked up some other news. This bit of news is a day late, but it's still something I've been kinda waiting for.


Google Adding Search By Voice, Pictures

San Francisco (CNN) -- The plain Google search box will soon be able to handle more than taps on a keyboard. 

Google is bringing features pioneered on smartphones, like voice and image search, to its flagship product, the company said at a news conference here on Tuesday.

The speech-recognition tool began showing up as a microphone button on the right-hand side of the Google.com search box for some visitors on Tuesday. It will only be available on Google's Chrome Web browser for now, but Google executives say they hope other software makers implement the technology to support the feature.

Like on Android or the Google application for the iPhone, people can click the mic icon on Google.com, and say a phrase or question into their computer microphone.

The speech technology attempts to account for accents and context in order to transcribe the recording into text. This produced mixed results in my testing, speaking in plain English or with a faux Cockney accent.

The image-search feature will start rolling out in the next few days, said Johanna Wright, a Google search director. "Every picture has a story, and we want to help you discover that story," she said.

Image Search can, say, look at a family vacation photo and figure out where it was shot, or help explain images that become Internet memes, such as Lolcats. The recognition technology applies a bunch of Google's proprietary algorithms to photos, but facial recognition isn't one of them, executives said in an interview with reporters.

People using newer Web browsers will be able to drag an image file from the desktop onto the search box. Additional features are available to those who install the Google Toolbar in Firefox.

Google Instant, the immediate suggestions offered when a user is typing into the search box, will debut on Google's image-search section "in the coming weeks," said Google exec Amit Singhal.

To complement Google's quest for high-speed Web surfing, the company plans to roll out a feature called Instant Pages. It will sometimes load the top search result on your computer before you click on the link, so that the page pops up instantly once you do.

The feature will only be available in Chrome, starting with the beta version 

of the software later this week.

That many of Tuesday's announcements will initially only be available in Chrome limits their reach. In May, Google controlled 65.5% of the U.S. Web search market, according to comScore, but Chrome only had 12.5% of browser usage -- far behind Internet Explorer

and Firefox -- said research firm Net Applications.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/web/06/14/google.voice.search/index.html?hpt=te_r1

So, it took very little to get me interested in this article. So Google is essentially going to bring what smartphones already had (voice recognition) and add it to Google Chrome. This function is going to be fun to use, especially considering I primarily use Chrome. Voice Search will only be on Chrome for the time being, because obviously other software makers haven't implemented this yet. One question that has risen from this issue is whether or not British (more specifically English) accents will be recognizable with this new feature.

Personally, I would love if there was a search based on tone. There are some songs I hear sampled (mashup fan, here), and I can't get my finger on the title, nor can I get the lyrics. In that case, I only have what I hum, and if I could search via hum or something, it'd be cool stuff.

The Voice Search wasn't the only new thing that Google was introducing. The successful company revealed at a media event, that they will add new things on the image side of Google. Search by Images will allow for users to search for images when we either point at an URL on a web-based image or we take an image from our own finder window or what have you, and drag it down to the image box. For example, if I have an image of the Waterfalls sculpture, and place it on the Search by Images box, I will then see search results regarding Lloyd Frank Wright's famous piece of architecture.

Google Instant, which arrived last year, if I recall, was that kooky function in Google search that allowed for automatic recommendations right as you type. Well, Google has come through with an improvement over this. You see, even though you had automatic search recommendations, you still had to wait a while before the top image downloads. Google Instant fixes this problem, so that you can get a quicker load speed for your screen.

Overall, this is some stuff I'll be keeping a close eye on in the coming months, especially info regarding Voice Search.

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