It’s been a BIG DAY for European Android fans so far today, with Google unleashing Maps Navigation on the mainland – and now announcing support for four new languages in its Google Search by Voice add on.
From today, users who speak in the most common accent variations of French, German, Italian and Spanish will be able to search Google via voice recognition, taking the pain out of touch-typing. Here’s how to get the Android version running, according to the Google Mobile Blog:
“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.”
The right-hand image shows the iPhone version of the upgrade, Android is on the left. Obviously a lot of countries and regional variations remain unsupported – but Google says its eventual goal is to “bring Google Search by voice to speakers of all languages” – so hang in there. Or learn German, which could be quicker.
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