Google Voice Search or Search by Voice is a Google product that allows users to use Google Search by speaking on a mobile phone or computer, i.e. have the device search for data upon entering information on what to search into the device by speaking.
 | |
| Developer(s) | |
|---|---|
| Initial release | May 20, 2012 |
| Available in | Multilingual |
| Type | Search by voice on your mobile phone and desktop PC |
| Website | www |
Initially named as Voice Action which allowed one to give speech commands to an Android phone. Once only available for the U.S. English locale – commands were later recognizable and replied to in American, British, and Indian English; Filipino, French, Italian, German, and Spanish.[1]
In Android 4.1+ (Jelly Bean), it was merged with Google Now.
In August 2014, a new feature was added to Google Voice Search, allowing users to choose up to five languages and the app will automatically understand the spoken language.[2]
Google Voice Search on Google.com
editOn June 14, 2011, Google announced at its Inside Google Search event that it would start to roll out Voice Search on Google.com during the coming days.[3][4]
Google rolled out the support, but only for the Google Chrome browser.
History
editGoogle Voice Search was a tool from Google Labs that allowed someone to use their phone to make a Google query. After the user called (650) 623-6706, the number of Google Voice's search system, they would wait for the words Say your Search Keywords and then say the keywords. Next, they would either wait to have the page updated, or click on a link to bring up the search page the user requested. At the moment, both the demo of this service and the page have been shut down. Since the introduction of the service, products from Google, such as GOOG-411, Google Maps and Google Mobile App, have been developed to use speech recognition technology in various ways.
On October 30, 2012, Google released a new Google Search app for iOS, which featured an enhanced Google Voice Search function, similar to that of the Voice Search function found in Google's Android Jelly Bean and aimed to compete with Apple's own Siri voice assistant.[5] The new app has been compared favorably by reviewers to Siri and The Unofficial Apple Weblog's side-by-side comparison said that Google's Voice Search on iOS is "amazingly quick and relevant, and has more depth [than Siri]".[6] Of note is that as of May 2016 20% of search queries on mobile devices were done through voice with the number expected to grow.[7]
Supported languages
editThe following languages and variants are partially supported in Google Voice Search:[8]
- Abaza since 2021[citation needed]
- Afrikaans since 2010[9]
- Albanian since 2020
- Amharic since 2017[10]
- Arabic since 2006[10]
- Armenian since 2017[10]
- Azerbaijani since 2017[10]
- Basque since 2012[11]
- Bangla since 2017[10]
- Bulgarian since 2012[11]
- Burmese since 2018[10]
- Catalan since 2012[11]
- Czech since 2010[12]
- Danish since 2014[13]
- Dutch since 2010[14]
- English (Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, South Africa, UK, US), some variants since 2008 launch
- Filipino since 2013[15]
- Finnish since 2012[11]
- French since 2010[16]
- Galician since 2012[11]
- Georgian since 2017[10]
- German since 2010[16]
- Greek since 2014
- Gujarati since 2017[10]
- Hebrew since 2011[17]
- Hindi since 2008
- Hungarian since 2012[11]
- Icelandic since 2012[11]
- Italian since 2010[16]
- Indonesian since 2011[14]
- Japanese since 2009[18]
- Javanese since 2017[10]
- Kannada since 2017[10]
- Korean since 2010[19]
- Khmer since 2017[10]
- Kurdish since 2021[citation needed]
- Kyrgyz since 2022[citation needed]
- Lao since 2017[10]
- Latin
- Latvian since 2017[10]
- Lithuanian since 2015
- Luxembourgish since 2020
- Macedonian since 2020
- Mandarin Chinese (Traditional Taiwan, Simplified China, Traditional Hong Kong) since 2009[20]
- Malay since 2011[14]
- Malayalam since 2017[10]
- Marathi since 2017[10]
- Mongolian since 2020
- Myanmar (Burmese) since 2017
- Nepali since 2017[10]
- Norwegian since 2012[11]
- Persian since 2013
- Polish since 2010
- Pig Latin since April 1, 2011[21] but it was actually added and not just because of April Fools' Day, although it is not officially listed
- Portuguese (Brazilian; European since 2012[11])
- Punjabi since 2020
- Romanian since 2012[11]
- Russian since 2010
- Serbian since 2012[11]
- Sindhi since 2021[citation needed]
- Sinhala since 2017[10]
- Slovak since 2012[11]
- Spanish (Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Spain, US, Uruguay, Venezuela) since 2010[16] and Latin American Spanish since 2011[14]
- Sundanese since 2017[10]
- Swahili since 2017[10]
- Swedish since 2012[11]
- Tamil since 2017[10]
- Telugu since 2017[10]
- Turkish since 2010
- Urdu since 2017[10]
- Uzbek since 2018
- Yue Chinese (Traditional Hong Kong) since 2010[22]
- Zulu since 2010[9]
- Vietnamese since 2015
Integration in other Google products
editGoogle Maps with voice search
editIn the summer of 2008, Google added voice search to the BlackBerry Pearl version of Google Maps for mobile, allowing Pearl users to say their searches in addition to typing them. See http://www.google.com/mobile/blackberry/maps.html for more information.
Google Mobile App with voice search
editThe Google Mobile app for Blackberry and Nokia (Symbian) mobiles allows users to search Google by voice at the touch of a button by speaking their queries. See http://www.google.com/mobile/apple/app.html for more information. Google also introduced voice search to all "Google Experience" Android phones with the 1.1 platform update, which includes the functionality on board the built-in Google Search widget.
In November 2008, Google added voice search to Google Mobile App on iPhone. With a later update, Google announced Voice Search for iPod touch. It requires a third party microphone. On August 5, 2009, T-Mobile launched the MyTouch 3G with Google, which features one-touch Google Voice Search.
Google Voice Search in YouTube
editSince March 2010, a beta-grade derivation of Google Voice Search is used on YouTube to provide optional automatic text caption annotations of videos in the case that annotations are not provided. This feature is geared to the hearing-impaired and, at present, is only available for use by English-speaking users.[23]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ "Introducing Voice Actions for Android in the UK, France, Italy, Germany and Spain". Google Mobile Blog. September 16, 2011.
- ^ Moon, Mariella (August 15, 2015). "Google Voice Search can now handle multiple languages with ease". engadget. AOL Tech. Retrieved February 25, 2016.
- ^ van Vliet, Wouter (Tue June 14, 2011) Blog on ilikealot.com about the announcement
- ^ Google (Tue June 14, 2011) Official announcement
- ^ "Google Search App for iOS Updated with new Voice Search function". Engadget. October 30, 2012.
- ^ "Siri vs Google Voice Search - May the Best Robot Helper Win". TUAW. November 1, 2012.
- ^ "With New Products, Google Flexes Muscles to Competitors, Regulators". NPR.
- ^ "Google Voice Search". techappsmedia. December 4, 2016.
- ^ a b "Voice Search in Underrepresented Languages". Google Research Blog. November 9, 2010.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v "Type less, talk more". Google Blog. August 14, 2017.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Google Blog (August 17, 2012). "Voice Search arrives in 13 new languages".
{{cite web}}:|author=has generic name (help) - ^ Google Mobile Blog (October 21, 2010). "Voice Search in Russian, Polish, Czech and Turkish".
{{cite web}}:|author=has generic name (help) - ^ "Hvordan slår jeg dansk sprog til i Google Now (Google Nu)?". October 2, 2014.
- ^ a b c d Google Mobile Blog (March 30, 2011). "Word of Mouth: Introducing Voice Search for Indonesian, Malaysian and Latin American Spanish".
{{cite web}}:|author=has generic name (help) - ^ Rappler (July 15, 2013). "Google Search by Voice in Filipino".
- ^ a b c d Google Mobile Blog (June 9, 2010). "Salut! Willkommen! Benvenuto! ¡Bienvenido! Google Search by Voice in French, German, Italian and Spanish".
{{cite web}}:|author=has generic name (help) - ^ "Voice Search arrives in the Middle East". Google Mobile Blog. December 5, 2011.
- ^ "Teaching a Computer to Understand Japanese". Google Research Blog. December 15, 2009.
- ^ ""Annyeong Haseyo! "안녕하세요" to Google Search by Voice in Korean". Google Mobile Blog. June 22, 2010.
- ^ "Google Search by Voice Learns Mandarin Chinese". Google Research Blog. November 2, 2009.
- ^ "Ig-pay Atin-lay Oice-vay Earch-say". Google Research Blog. April 1, 2011.
- ^ "Google Launches Cantonese Voice Search in Hong Kong". Google Research Blog. December 2, 2010.
- ^ Warman, Matt (March 5, 2010). "YouTube adds video captions". London: Daily Telegraph. Retrieved March 7, 2010.