Google to add voice search to iPhone

Now, instead of typing in 'where is my nearest pizza restaurant' and receiving a multitude of personal-ad-sites, you can simply speak out loud to your phone - while people look at you like a crazed person - and receive similar offerings.

By using a way to distinguish between voice and keyboard input by using the phone's accelerometer and proximity sensors, it can tell when you have the phone at the side of your head, similar to how the iPhone screen switches off when you're in a call.

Instead of interpreting your voice on-the-fly using the iPhone hardware, a recording of the voice query is sent to Google's servers for interpretation, sending back results "seconds later".

The search results will include local information when relevant, taking advantage of the in-built Iphone AGPS that lets it determine its own location.

Unknown to many, Microsoft and Yahoo, among other providers, already promote their own voice search offerings.

The Microsoft 'Tellme' service returns in categories like maps and movies. Yahoo's 'Onesearch with voice' is highly flexible, but the New York Times states that it doesn't appear to be as accurate as Google's new offering.

In other iPhone update news, it is rumoured that the latest iPhone firmware update, to version 2.2, will be launched on November 22nd.

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