Introducing Voice Actions for Android in the UK, France, Italy, Germany and Spain

Last year in the US, we introduced Voice Actions, a series of spoken commands that let you control your Android phone or tablet with your voice. You can call businesses and contacts, send texts, browse the web and complete other common tasks, all just by speaking into your phone.

Today, we’re pleased to announce that users in the UK, France, Italy, Germany and Spain can now use Voice Actions in British English, French, Italian, German and Spanish.

To use Voice Actions, tap the microphone button on the Google search box on your home screen, open the Voice Search app, or press down for a few seconds on the physical search button on your phone to activate the “Speak Now” screen. You can see how it works in this video.

Speak any of these commands to perform a Voice Action on your phone:

• send text to [contact] [message]
• call [business]
• call [contact]
• go to [website]
• navigate to [location/business name]
• directions to [location/business name]
• map of [location]

And of course, you can still conduct a Google search using your voice.

Use Voice Actions to get directions, or send a text using just your voice

Voice Actions is available on phones and tablets running Android 2.2 and higher. If you don't have Voice Search on your phone yet, you can download it from Android Market - if you do have Voice Search, you can just start using Voice Actions.

We think Voice Actions helps you get things done on your phone faster and easier. Give it a try, and let us know what you think!

Posted by Bertrand Damiba, Product Manager

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Word of Mouth: Introducing Voice Search for Indonesian, Malaysian and Latin American Spanish

(Read more about the launch of Voice Search in Latin American Spanish on the Google América Latina blog)

Today we are excited to announce the launch of Voice Search in Indonesian, Malaysian, and Latin American Spanish, making Voice Search available in over two dozen languages and accents since our first launch in November 2008. This accomplishment could not have been possible without the help of local users in the region - really, we couldn’t have done it without them. Let me explain:

In 2010 we launched Voice Search in Dutch, the first language where we used the “word of mouth” project, a crowd-sourcing effort to collect the most accurate voice data possible.The traditional method of acquiring voice samples is to license the data from companies who specialize in the distribution of speech and text databases. However, from day one we knew that to build the most accurate Voice Search acoustic models possible, the best data would come from the people who would use Voice Search once it launched - our users.

Since then, in each country, we found small groups of people who were avid fans of Google products and were part of a large social network, either in local communities or on online. We gave them phones and asked them to get voice samples from their friends and family. Everyone was required to sign a consent form and all voice samples were anonymized. When possible, they also helped to test early versions of Voice Search as the product got closer to launch.

Building a speech recognizer is not just limited to localizing the user interface. We require thousands of hours of raw data to capture regional accents and idiomatic speech in all sorts of recording environments to mimic daily life use cases. For instance, when developing Voice Search for Latin American Spanish, we paid particular attention to Mexican and Argentinean Spanish. These two accents are more different from one another than any other pair of widely-used accents in all of South and Central America. Samples collected in these countries were very important bookends for building a version of Voice Search that would work across the whole of Latin America. We also chose key countries such as Peru, Chile, Costa Rica, Panama and Colombia to bridge the divergent accent varieties.

As an International Program Manager at Google, I have been fortunate enough to travel around the world and meet many of our local Google users. They often have great suggestions for the products that they love, and word of mouth was created with the vision that our users could participate in developing the product. These Voice Search launches would not have been possible without the help of our users, and we’re excited to be able to work together on the product development with the people who will ultimately use our products.

Posted by Linne Ha, International Program Manager, Google Voice Search

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What you say is what you search

Many of you have searched the web by speaking since the launch of voice search in 2008. In fact, one in every four searches from an Android phone in the US is by voice. In certain situations, voice search just works much better than typing. It’s a lot faster than typing on a small phone screen. You can search things even when you don’t know the correct spelling. It’s more fun as you can share what you’re doing with your friends. And it’s safer when you’re walking around. Once you start using voice search, you start discovering all sorts of new ways to use it.

We’ve thought of a few interesting uses for voice search and made some short videos out of them. Check them out on our new YouTube channel. But we know you can do better. What are some of your most frequent or unusual voice search queries? Leave us a comment below or on our YouTube channel.



Posted by Heaven Kim, Product Marketing, Google Mobile

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“Annyeong Haseyo! “안녕하세요” to Google Search by Voice in Korean

The creation of the Korean alphabet by Sejong the Great was a wonderful advance, enabling literacy for the masses. However, even with the latest smartphone keyboards, entering the characters of the Korean alphabet is still challenging.

Less than two weeks ago we announced Google Search by Voice in French, German, Italian, and Spanish, and today we are happy to announce support for Korean.

Google Search by Voice in action on Android and iPhone

Google Search by Voice will be available soon, pre-installed, on the Samsung Galaxy S and the Nexus One. It is also accessible in the Android Market and via Google Mobile App for the BlackBerry and the iPhone. You can download Google Mobile App at m.google.com

So if you speak Korean, grab your phone and bid Google Search by Voice a hearty Annyeong Haseyo! 안녕하세요!

Posted by Amir Mané, Speech Technologies PM, and Haimin Lee, Korea PM

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Salut! Willkommen! Benvenuto! ¡Bienvenido! Google Search by Voice in French, German, Italian and Spanish

Here’s a test for the German speakers out there: which is faster...saying Geschwindigkeitsbeschränkung (German for speed limit), or typing the same query character-by-character?

Voice has always been the most natural way to interact with a phone -- speaking is typically faster and easier than typing. We first developed Search by voice for English, and then for Mandarin Chinese and Japanese. Today we’re excited to welcome speakers of French, German, Italian, and Spanish.

Images of Google Search by Voice in Italian (Android), German (iPhone), Spanish (BlackBerry)

Our goal is to bring Google Search by voice to speakers of all languages. We follow a rigorous process to add each new language or dialect. Working directly with native speakers in each country, we spend weeks collecting spoken utterances to create the specific models which power the service. Our helpers are asked to read popular queries in their native tongue, in a variety of acoustic conditions such as in restaurants, out on busy streets, and inside cars. We also construct, for each language, a vocabulary of over one million recognizable words. It’s no small feat, but we love doing it.

Note that our new language models are designed for accents from Spain, France, Italy, and Germany. If you speak one of the new languages with another accent (for example, German in Austria, French in Switzerland, or Spanish in Mexico), Search by voice may not work so well for you.

How you get started with Google Search by voice depends on what kind of phone you have. If your phone runs Android 2.1 or later, and you have the Quick Search Box installed, all you have to do is tap the microphone icon to start a voice-powered search. iPhone and BlackBerry users who already have Google Mobile App installed can enable voice search by selecting the new languages from the settings panel within the app.

If you have Android 1.6 or 2.1 (Donut or Eclair), and you have already installed the Search by voice application, starting later today voice search will return recognition results for French, German, Italian or Spanish if your phone has one of those languages chosen in ‘Language and keyboard’ settings. If you do not have the Search by voice application, you can install it from Android Market on your phone - search for ‘voice search‘. This application is only available in the Android Markets for France, Germany, Italy and Spain.

To get Google Mobile App for iPhone, search for ‘Google Mobile App’ in the App Store or follow this link. BlackBerry and Nokia S60 users should visit m.google.com using their phone’s browser.

Learn more at http://mobile.google.com and select your country in the footer.

So if you speak French, Italian, German, Spanish, grab your phone and bid Google Search by voice a hearty Salut! Willkommen! Benvenuto! ¡Bienvenido!

Posted by Amir Mané, Product Manager, Google Speech Technologies

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