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June 17, 2011 - Shammam Consulting Services

The Internet has become an increasingly accessible source of information as more and more mobile devices have been designed with online features. Smartphones are becoming more commonplace and are challenging developers to create new ways in which we can interact with the Internet from a mobile device. Once such advancement is voice search, a technological evolution of common voice recognition programs. While most users have experienced voice recognition in one way or another, few users have fully interacted with voice search technology. The idea is simple: provide a way for mobile users to search the Internet without using microscopic keyboards or scrolling through massive amounts of text.

What is voice search?

There is no greater collection of information than the Internet. However, without a way to effectively search the Internet’s content, it becomes useless. As smartphones become a leading outlet for users to access the Internet, more effective ways of searching online have been developed. Voice search transmits a user’s voice to a digitally controlled database that runs this information through a series of voice-recognition algorithms and then sends that information back to the device to develop a search query. Basically, your smartphone uses the Internet to translate your voice into detailed code at an extremely fast rate.

This is all made possible by the recent advancement of cloud computing. Voice search uses the Internet to decipher your voice, where voice recognition traditionally used a device. The introduction of the cloud to this particular technology allows for unbelievable performance by way of accuracy and speed. The cloud is the main application that makes voice search far more advanced than voice recognition.

    Voice recognition has been a familiar technology to anyone who has ever called a costumer care line. Voice search takes the idea of voice recognition and combines it with cloud computing with the end result of a highly functional voice-based command option.

What is the future of voice search?

    The future will most likely see an increase in the adoption of voice search technology, not only in interactions with the Internet but also in controlling the devices themselves.

However, the most exciting and logical next step in voice recognition evolution would be language understanding technology. Classic search is based on matching query terms with an index of words found in documented text. Language understanding would differ from that in its ability to function abstractly. For example, a classic search for “change volume” would find documents or files containing those words. The same search with language understanding would result in bringing the user to the settings that control volume. Imagine changing the volume on your computer by just asking it to change.

Voice search is a perfect example of how technology evolves in line with cultural trends and practical designs.  We can look forward to highly effective voice command and recognition functionality on future devices.  If you’d like to read more information on voice search, including its history and development, please check out this article.