One of China’s many languages can now be used on Google’s voice search tool. Users of Nokia S60 series mobile phones can search the internet using voice commands in Mandarin. Until now voice search has only been available in English.Mandarin currently only works on the Nokia S60 but Google says it is working on making it available on other products and mobile platforms, including Android and iPhone. In our illustration you just might be able to spot China listed in blue for voice recognition.
The new Google Mobile App for S60 — which can be downloaded at Google Mobile — will let users of S60 phones speak their search queries rather than type them. First select China for the right language. Then simply to hold down the green send key and say what it is they are looking for. Google will send the speech file to its servers, translate it into text, conduct a search based on that text, and then return results to the handset.
Google said that it has been working on this feature for a while. In addition to the voice-based searching, there is a new link to the application for the home page that makes it even faster to launch.
Information Week warns that some Mandarin commands may be lost in translation because the language, which makes use of complex tones, posed an "engineering challenge".
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