In an attempt to keep up with the latest technology, and provide it to their users, Google has introduced a new service on the Apple iPhone – free voice-enabled search.With the introduction of this new service, iPhone users will be able to conduct searches, by just speaking the words in the query they are interested in into their mobile phone, rather than go through the cumbersome procedure of having to type out the search terms.
While this application is certainly not new – Windows Mobile and Yahoo! Mobile already have similar services – it is reasonable to expect that due to the sheer popularity of Google and the simplicity of the process, a lot more iPhone users are now likely to use Google Search on their handsets.
Google will also combine this service with the iPhone’s GPS capability, to pinpoint the user’s location and the locations of various advertisers, reports Wired.com. However there is a downside to the voice search service. Search terms have been entered into the system in a typical American accent and hence the search procedure fails if the search words are spoken by people with different accents.
Given the diverse accents spoken in the U.K., the voice search function has quite “confused” the system. According to the Telegraph, when the word iPhone was spoken into the handset, using various British accents, the results ranged from Einstein, MySpace and Bonfire to Gorillas and Kitchen sinks!
A hilarious situation by itself, one might say, but one that was certainly never intended by Google.
