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Google Introduces New Voice and Location Search Features

Mobile phone users can now enjoy a new feature on their mobile phones as Google introduces Visual search with Google Goggles. This is a new option for users of the search engine from their mobile phone phone’s browser. There are however other great novelties brought by Google to its services. Some of these services are the addition of support for new languages on search by voice and a new search location feature.

The search by voice brought to the table almost a year ago has witnessed a great deal of improvements ever since, including the addition of Japanese, according to Vic Gundotra, Vice President of Engineering who stated this on the Google Mobile Blog. Google also stated that the voice service has also experienced the introduction of Mandarin and it is also looking like other features like in-conversation translation will be added.

Google has also enhanced the search by location service with a new feature called “What’s Nearby,” which adds to the existing list like My Location, Real- Time Traffic, and Turn-By-Turn navigation. The new features are available for all Android 1.6 and other higher mobile phones to enjoy. All a user need to do is “just long press anywhere on the map and we will return a list of the 10 closest places, including restaurants, shops and other points of interest. It’s a simple answer to a simple question, finally.”

Google also introduced the mobile labs which are meant to offer the development of Google Maps the possibility to quickly innovate and come up with new features for users of mobile phones. For the phone users, they can access the maps from the mobile phones by pressing the menu key, then pressing “More” and selecting Labs from the list.

Google further stated that “you‘ll find several stocking stuffers under Labs. You can now:

-display a scale bar on the map, to get an idea of how far apart things on the map are shown a terrain layer, to help plan your hike or cross-country ski trip.

-search for popular categories, so you never have to type in “Vietnamese restaurant” or “bowling alleys” again

-turn the blue My location dot into a compass arrow that shows the direction you‘re facing when stationary

-add a Layer button to the screen so you can quickly toggle layers like Traffic, Satellite, Latitude, and Transit Lines.”