U.S. Patent No. 7,027,987, which is assigned to Google relates to “a voice interface for search engines. Through the use of a language model, phonetic dictionary and acoustic models, a server generates an n-best hypothesis list or word graph.”
In patent applications, the letter “n” stands for infinity.
Google Labs, a pre-beta test site for the search engine giant, has had a demo of something called Google Voice Search available for more than a year. However, the idea goes back beyond that, as the patent application is dated February 2001.
Using the demo, searchers can call a number at Google and give their search terms after a prompt. After a minute, users receive a link leading them to their search terms.
While hands-free searching may be a nice change of pace for some surfers, the real advantage will be for the growing mobile market.
Still, Google is guarded about the tool. “We file patent applications on a variety of ideas that our employees may come up with,” Barry Schitt, spokesman for Google, said. “Some of those ideas later mature into real products or services, some don't. Prospective product announcements should not be inferred from our patent applications.”
Despite Google’s tight lips on the subject, competition is around the corner. In May 2005, Dr. Meirav Taieb-Maimon of the Department of Information Systems at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel announced that her team had developed a voice-activated Internet system called Maestro.