Google Finds Its Voice
The voice-activated mobile search industry welcomes Google’s new patent.
April 13, 2006 – The United States Patent Office awarded Google a patent
this week for voice-based search queries that could help the company
make headway in the growing mobile search market.
Filed five years ago with Google co-founder, and having president Sergey
Brin listed as one of the inventors, the patent outlines a method for returning
search results from a voice-activated question.
Such a service could put Google in competition with startups like Promptu
and V-ENABLE for part of a mobile search market that Piper Jaffray pegs
at $11 billion by 2008.
Google didn’t say what plans it had for the patented technology. “We
file patent applications on a variety of ideas that our employees may come
up with. Some of those ideas later mature into real products or services;
some don't,” Google spokesperson Barry Schnitt wrote in an email.
While Google played it cool, the small voice-activated mobile search
community pounced on the patent application to study it for evidence
of infringement or clues to Google’s intentions in the business.
Google Welcomed
Craig Hagopian, president and chief operating officer of V-ENABLE in
San Diego, said Google’s patent appears complementary to V-ENABLE’s
technology, adding somewhat coyly that he could not elaborate on what sort
of discussions he was having with Google.
V-ENABLE, formed in 2001, and having 35 employees, has raised $12 million
in three rounds of funding. In February, SoftBank Capital and Palisades
Ventures led the most recent round.
Mr. Hagopian said the notion of voice-activated search on cell phones
has become popular in the past 18 months. “The technology and the
content have finally caught up with the idea,” he said.
Source: RedHerring.com