Google Voice Search May be Coming Soon 109
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.'"
WTF? (Score:4, Funny)
Do Slashdot editors submit stories with voice recognition software?
Revenge of the Nerds (Score:2, Funny)
Step 2 found! (Score:1, Funny)
ii) Put the two together and patent the result.
iii) Profit!
Re:Step 2 found! (Score:1, Insightful)
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 s
Re:Step 2 found! (Score:1)
Yes, it does. It takes the probabilities that the voice recognition system outputs for various phrases (if you say "free ipod" it might recognize "free ipod" with a 90% chance and "free eye pod" with a 10% chance, since it's never totally sure what you said) and feeds them into the search engine as weights. Basically, it does use more useful informati
That's the job of the Speech recognition system. (Score:1)
No, I didn't say "Tonight to b
Ballmer reply... (Score:1)
Coming Soon? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Coming Soon? (Score:2)
It is quite possible that we will hear more about this one.
Re:Coming Soon? (Score:2)
Perhaps they're using some kind of soundex (phonetic codification) way to implement this? That might be nice if you know what something sounds like but don't know how to spell it; i.e. the lyrics to a song or a person or company name.
I hereby submit above idea to the public domain if it isn't patented yet
Re:Coming Soon? (Score:2)
Not useful for me... (Score:5, Funny)
mmmmm, pr0n (Score:1)
Re:mmmmm, pr0n (Score:2)
Not necessarily voice search (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not necessarily voice search (Score:2)
Re:Not necessarily voice search (Score:1)
But that's what's novel about this patent. It doesn't just run voice recognition and put a resulting string into the normal google search.
It generates a weighted list of things that you *might* have said, looks them all up, revises the weights based on the results, and returns all the results, using the weights to help order them.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Not necessarily voice search (Score:2)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0780334493/ref=e
He's been in this field for 25+ years, he tells me all the time about how it's not ready for prime time yet..
Re:Not necessarily voice search (Score:2, Informative)
If you had bothered to RTFP, you'd know
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, wou
Re:Not necessarily voice search (Score:2)
covers a 'Voice interface for a search engine.'
Google Voice Search (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Google Voice Search (Score:2)
That said, I'm sure it does relate to the parent's link, and Google decided that, at the moment, there's not much of a market for search results via telephone. Not that they can't apply it in other ways now that VOIP is becoming more of a reality.
Re:Google Voice Search (Score:1)
Re:Google Voice Search (Score:1)
Supporting vague patents supports terrorism (Score:2, Insightful)
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 (Score:2, Funny)
You have been warned.
Re:Make sure you don't say "hello" to it (Score:2)
Voice Matching (Score:5, Interesting)
This has been in "beta" / "alpha for a while now? (Score:1, Insightful)
Privacy Issues (Score:2, Funny)
Google Voice: Please state what it is that you would like to search for.
MAN (whispering):
GV: I'm sorry, I did not understand you. Please state your search item again.
MAN (whispering):
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 vi
Re:Privacy Issues (Score:1)
"Call Mom"
"Call Tom?"
"No. Call Mom."
"Call Rob?"
"No. CAHLL, MAAHM."
"Call Craig?"
"What? No. I'll do it myself, you stupid useless feature."
Re:Privacy Issues (Score:1)
Me: Call mom.
Phone: Set up a conference call between you and all persons in South Africa whose names start with "J", using whatever directories of phone numbers is possible to connect to from where you're standing for the moment?
So far, this is unfortunately all I have gotten it to
Re:Privacy Issues (Score:1)
Better y
Re:Privacy Issues (Score:2)
Woohoo! I'm looking at PORN! Yeah, alright! This is great!
Or something like that anyway. I'm still not sure if I really believe that though. It seems highly unprofessional for a college to do.
Re:Privacy Issues (Score:2)
Woohoo! I'm looking at PORN! Yeah, alright! This is great!
I'm just curious. If someone used ssh or remote desktop to connect the machine, and watch porn in the web-browser on that machine, would it be detected, and which spea
Re:Privacy Issues (Score:1, Funny)
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Re:Let me guess... (Score:1)
Another garbage patent... (Score:2)
Feb 2001 (Score:2)
Three Wise Monkeys (Score:3, Funny)
Prior art from the handicapped ? (Score:3, Interesting)
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 ????
Re:Prior art from the handicapped ? (Score:2)
I can't wait.. (Score:2, Interesting)
I can't wait to see his face when google toolbar will start throwing pages at him.
European Quaero. (Score:3, Interesting)
Attack of the Eurogoogle [economist.com] (Need subscription).
No subscription needed here [eiu.com]
From the article:
Prior art (Score:2)
And for a search-engine-specific prior usage, in my area calling directory assistance has been largely automated using voice-recognition software, as have many coprorate phone systems.
Like Star Trek, Computer... Find me a _____ (Score:1)
"...a method that provides search results includes receiving a voice search query from a user; deriving one or more recognition hypotheses from the voice search query, each recognition hypothesis being associated with a weight; constructing a weighted boolean query using the recognition hypotheses; providing the weighted boolean query to a search system; and providin
what is the difference (Score:2)
perhaps the only patentable thing in software might be breakthroughs in compiler theory or instruction sets
Google Pronounce - not just vox searches (Score:2)
Now here's a thought - what if Goog were to implement their existing "Did you mean _____?" search suggestions with a voice-based system?
You speak "find Ly-nux!" - it speaks back "Did you mean Lin-nucks?"
While the example might make you chuckle, I think that such a feature could have far reaching impact - as has been discussed previously, one of the things which prevents people from learning about or discussing new things or ideas is an inability to pronounce the associated terms. Such an implementation
Re:Google Pronounce - not just vox searches (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Vocabulary is the trick.. (Score:2)
As the article suggests, the vocabulary is the problem. When doing dictation, grammar rules allow the voice recognition engine to usually narrow the list of words making recognition more accurate.
The problem with searching is that you could be searching for anything. I'm not even sure their ideas of using past searches is even a particularly good id
I've Seen this Episode (Score:5, Funny)
MjM
Oblig Futurama (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I've Seen this Episode (Score:1)
Scotty: Google? Google?
McCoy hands Scotty the mouse.
Scotty: Hello, Google?
Engineer: *sigh* Just use the keyboard.
Scotty: Ah, a keyboard...how quaint.
Scotty taps keyboard slowly at first, then accelerates to Warp-
Re:I've Seen this Episode (Score:2)
MjM
google labs demo (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Royalty payments... (Score:2)
Wait a moment, voice search? (Score:2)
I wouldn't keep my hopes up for Google Voice Search any time soon based on that.
Re: (Score:2)
Cellphones and MMORPGs (Score:2)
How you could use this (Score:2)
First off, I think patents like this are evil, and though I haven't read the details I suspect it's written broadly.
This patent applies to telephony and devices that haven't been invented yet. How slick would it be to integrate your browser on your cell phone with Google's services? Think about the integration with Asterisk you could do. You could have Google provide driving directions based on your spoken input. Want a picture of your fav
UH?? (Score:1)
Kiss my shiny metal..... (Score:1, Funny)
Too late (Score:2)
Mobile voice search is not the killer technology (Score:1)
Finally, I don't think US is the best market for m-search & commerce. With just 207 Million subscribers in [zdnet.com]
Why bother? (Score:1)
But will it find my truck keys? (Score:2)
Re:Yay, more patents :-( (Score:1)
If they don't patent it, somebody else will!
-:sigma.SB
Re:Yay, more patents :-( (Score:1)
Perhaps not what people first guess... (Score:2, Interesting)
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 [kotay.com]
Re:Perhaps not what people first guess... (Score:1)
off the top of my head? Accents.
Listen to a "Yooper" argue with a "Good ole Boy" some day. Get a "Bronxer" in there and ask em to discuss relativity.