Monday 24 November 2008

Google doesn't understand me

I recently installed the Google app for my iPhone after reading that it has voice-recognition search functionality. I'm not sure if it's my thick Australian accent, or the fact that I was perhaps slurring my words, but Google and I had a degree of trouble communicating.

I tried to search for this blog, so my spoken search term was "Medium Tedium".

My first attempt, the app interpreted my command as 'nadien kdm'


Then 'medium tv m' - perhaps the closest out of all the tries.


My personal favourite: 'canadian kadian'


'michigan stadium' if-you-will. This attempt was with an American accent, remembering that the Speakable Items on my old Quadra responded better to this type of accent.


Failing that I tried an English accent, resulting in 'la ti do'


'canadian staduim'. At this moment, I'm considering speech therapy to assist with my pronunciation of the letter 'm'


'vb net com'


And again, I get a medium in there. 'medium tv mo'. Another close one.


At this point I gave up. However, it's a decent little app. All the searches open up in Safari, and I've yet to try it's integration with other Google tools. The thing I liked most about it was that after you've spoken, the app shows an accurate waveform of your voice recording. I think this has some nice potential for future apps with visual data being manipulated by real-world sounds.