Talking to Google....

Now that we can conduct google searches by voice, it seems clear that we'll soon be able to access other google services by voice as well.

Need to update your calendar? Pick up your cell phone, access your google app or call an 800 number, and speak to add items to your google calander or have it read you your daily schedule.

Need to send that pdf report to your boss? Talk to gmail, have it grab the report from your google docs account, and then dictate a short message before having it send off the email.

Want to know what news is breaking in the technology sector? Talk to google reader and google news, and have them read you the day's headlines.

Want to see how your portfolio is doing, or see what NASDAQ is doing today? Talk to google finance. Want to find out where the nearest Sushi place is? Talk to google maps, and then have it guide you there.

None of these things on their own is truly earth shattering, indeed none of these things would be a huge leap beyond the existing voice search they've already implemented. But when you combine all these capabilities together an exciting picture begins to emerge. In essence, google will have become an extremely powerful software agent. A personal digital assistant that knows your schedule, knows your reading habits, knows your interests, etc. What was once a number of useful but distinct web based applications, will suddenly have become a free personal assistant residing in your cell phone.

And it doesn't stop there. We'll soon be talking to facebook and yahoo and amazon and others, and they'll all be talking to each other. Could this be what web 3.0 will look like?

And now, google does voice recognition...

You've probably heard by now that google is releasing a new version of their mobile search application that integrates voice recognition. Its all over the internet, but if anything I would say this development is being under-estimated by most. I mean, yes, it will be nice to be able to do voice searching on mobile apps where typing in keywords can be a pain. That is a cool new feature and brings forward mobile computing by leaps and bounds.

However, to me the really big deal here is that this represents a major step forward in the field of voice recognition, and ultimately the field of AI in general. We're now in the era of working, reliable, voice recognition systems that don't require any training. If google is releasing this, then its fair to assume that we'll soon be able to talk to amazon, yahoo, microsoft, and other major web players as well. And all of these competing voice recognition engines will improve over time as the vast data centers collect more and more voice data to improve their statistical models.

And so, very shortly, we'll be able to "speak" to any device with an internet connection or to any web service, and they will understand the words and their underlying meaning. We're right on the cusp of a major change in the way we interact with technology and the Internet.