Android Director on Voice Search Jelly Bean and More
July 15, 2012
Suddenly Google’s Voice Search is better than Siri, and now more natural. That’s one of several things Hugo Barra, product management director for Android, told Wired in a recent interview, as reported in “Android Director: ‘We Have the Most Accurate, Conversational, Synthesized Voice in the World.'” The interview is a couple of pages, but worth the read for anyone interested in Google and/or the future of mobile computing.
The first question pertains to Google Now for mobile devices, an effort to streamline search results. Where a query has just one or a few very specific answers, the app presents those results on a simplified, easily accessible “information card.” Google Now can also be formatted to serve up certain information with one swipe, good for checking the weather before heading off to work, for example.
The interview then moves on to Voice Search. Notably, the tool does not make jokes; the team feels this makes their voice more impartial, and has no plans to program in a sense of humor. The voice is derived from that of a real woman, carefully chosen from a wealth of applicants to be the voice of Google. The results, according to interviewer Nathan Olivarez-Giles, does sound more like a natural voice than the competition.
Next, Olivarez-Giles turns to Jelly Bean and the Nexus 7. This device looks very different from existing Honeycomb or Ice Cream Sandwich tablets. Barra states that much of what the team did with that OS represents their ideas of where the mobile industry should head. He details two of these features:
“One is the home screen experience. We did this with Android with the first generation of widgets — this notion of having an application space of your own where stuff appears and actions can be invoked, without having to dive into an application. People want that, people need that.
“The second thing is task switching. There are all these awesome, specialized applications that exist today. I think there’s a specialization trend, by the way, in mobile. You use a lot more applications a lot more often, often for very simple tasks, so put those in the notification shade. Something as simple as calling back should not be three clicks away. It should be one click away. Bringing the application action value to the surface, when it’s needed, where it’s needed.”
Barra likes that the Nexus 7 is powerful yet small enough to fit in a small purse or a pocket; that is certainly a selling point for me. Still, Nexus 10 may be on the way.
Those are the tidbits from the interview that stood out for me. Check it out for more Googley information.
Cynthia Murrell, July 15, 2012
Sponsored by PolySpot
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One Response to “Android Director on Voice Search Jelly Bean and More”
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I think the fact that Siri is quite funny makes up for a lot of its drawbacks. It is almost a feature for some. Google’s products work great, but I can’t remember the last time they made me laugh.