I’ve written from time to time on the “real intention” behind Google’s free 411 service. I’ve long felt it was not a business desire to be in the voice services business as a 411 service provider; rather, it is a new channel for collecting huge volumes of voice utterances, from which it could build it’s own technology for voice recognition. Freeing itself from the shackles of TellME/Microsoft and Nuance - the two technology stalwarts in voice reco (who tend to vigorously acquire and defend patents), was pretty strategic.
John Markoff, NY Times technology columnist, highlights this evolving picture further, with an interesting profile article “Google is Taking Questions“. Markoff references a new (apparently not quite yet available) iphone app enhancement in Google’s search app.
