12 comments

[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 52.0 ms ] thread
Supports DuckDuckGo but not Bing? What sense does that make (no offense to DuckDuckGo but, seriously, it's not in the same league as Bing).
>You can add you own searches, too, and activate the extension to add a little microphone switch to other web pages' search boxes.
The screenshot is cropped. Bing is included in the default search engines.
What is possible with voice command currently? I've been considering using dragon naturally speaking and set up to use voice commands for keyboard shortcuts but I don't want to bother if I can't make it sufficiently "star trek like".
What are hn users' thoughts on voice control for the future?
I think the problem with voice control is that if it's not 100% perfect it's completely frustrating. When I encounter Interactive Voice Response systems, I'd much rather "press 1" than have to repeat myself three or four times.

That being said, if the technology improves to the point that it works the first time, then I see it being incorporated everywhere (cars, microwaves, lights, thermostat, etc).

Do you guys actually like doing voice searches? Because I don't.
When people are around I feel very odd doing voice searches, so I'll probably never use this at work. I like voice search on mobile devices, however, since it's easier than typing.
Neither do I, and I wrote the extension. I did it for fun to see what could be done with speech input.
On a mobile device? I can pull my phone out of my pocket, press a button, say "Navigate to Buffalo Bob's", and have turn by turn walking directions while my parents are still in the first 30 seconds of "No, I think we went too far, it's the other direction".

Faster than clicking Maps, clicking the search box, typing, waiting, choosing the location on the map, choosing navigation as an option, and then waiting for the directions to load.

Sometimes, when I think no one is looking, I shout "Arch!" just in case I'm on a holodeck
I'm looking forward to the personalized voice recognition from Android. I suspect Google will be able to do very interesting things with a model of my voice over the years.