Google just added a new service to their Google Labs page caleld "Google Local Voice Search... Unfortunately it's US only.... can anybody give it a shot and let us know how it works?

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Google/?p=532

From http://labs.google.com/goog411/

Welcome to Google Voice Local Search

Google Voice Local Search is Google’s experimental service to make local-business search accessible over the phone.

To try this service, just dial 1-800-GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411) from any phone.

Using this service, you can:

   * search for a local business by name or category.
   You can say "Giovanni's Pizzeria" or just "pizza".
   * get connected to the business, free of charge.
   * get the details by SMS if you’re using a mobile phone.
   Just say "text message".

And it's free. Google doesn’t charge you a thing for the call or for connecting you to the business. Regular phone charges may apply, based on your telephone service provider.

Note: Google Voice Local Search is still in its experimental stage. It may not be available at all times and may not work for all users. We’re fine-tuning the service to get better at recognizing your requests. It’s currently only available in English, in the US, for US business listings.

Also, from http://labs.google.com/goog411/shortcuts.html

Cheat Sheet
When you are asked for city and state, you can:

   * say the city and state like "beverly hills california".
   * say the zip, e.g. "nine-oh-two-one-oh".
   * type the zip code using the key pad, e.g. "9-0-2-1-0".

When you are asked for a business name or category, you can:

   * say a business name, like "Giovanni's pizzeria".
   * say a category name, like "hardware stores".
   * say "go back" to change city and state.

When browsing through results, you can:

   * say the listing number (e.g. "number two") or press the corresponding key (e.g. "2") to choose a listing or navigate between results.
   * say "text message" or press "9" to receive a text message, when you are calling from a mobile phone.
   * say "details" to get more information about the current listing.
   * say "start over" or press "*" to start from the main menu.
   * say "go back" to change business or category.

Cool!

Damn... I thought it was a way of searching using your mic. Shame, cos tht would have been cooler.

i know, that's what i thought first too- oh well
they'll probably just buy one of the existing companies that do that once they improve their technologies enough :P

I programmed this as a voice command for my cell phone. Works pretty slick. I can basically use this as a free 411. The voice prompts are pretty good and very intuitive.

Haha I just found that page a few mins ago and came to post it here but I was beaten :D

You call, they tell you they will record the call for quality, tell you that it's "experimental" and then start asking you questions

1. City and State (me: Columbus, Ohio)
2. Query (me: apple store) – Google returns: Textcode
3. Query (me: movie) – Google returns: movie
4. Then they will read the top 8 results, you can say "1st result" or press 1 for the first result, and so on.
5. There you can get more detail about the business or send them a text message if you are on a cell.

I will give it a 6/10 for voice recognition.

Wow. Awesome. I am tired of paying for 411 calls on the road.

? Whats a 411 call?

"For decades, most of the United States and Canada has used 4-1-1 as the telephone number for local directory assistance."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4-1-1

TNX in Ireland its 118- then whatever els

11811- Official Eircom
11850-Owned by the Brittish 118118
11890-Free Directory enquiries

They should've released this on April 1st. That would've been hilarious!

<<They should've released this on April 1st. That would've been hilarious!>>
And when people calls...
Repeat "April Fools!" 10x. :)

A typo included:
caleld "Google Local Voice Search...
should be _called_

A post on Lifehacker:

"Google is coming out with lots of G-goodness lately. I just tried to create a label in G-mail for "VoiceMail." The Goog let me know quickly that "System specific names are not allowed," and "Please try another name." I suspect a voice mail feature is in the works!"

Could be? Would be interesting.

The voicemail label is predefined (the same as inbox, sent, etc.). It's used for Google Talk voicemail.

WOW ... that's pretty darn good.

I'm surprised they don't geolocate using your inbound number and just confirm you want to use that location or another one ... although with cell phones, that is much more problematic.

I'm in the US. I tried it for about 5 mins, thank goodness it doesn't disconnect you off after many queries unlike the paid 411 services... plus no ads either (i doubt, this will change and we'll hear quick 5-10 sec ads soon). I"ll keep playing with it. BTW, the "text message" did not work for me, but i believe this is an issue with my provider.

related to "text messaging", Google Calendar was the only successful service that was able to send to my mobile a good text message... neither Google Accounts (when you create a new acct) nor Dodgeball was unable to do so successfullly.

Is this integrated into Google Talk?

Not until Gtalk can call phone numbers and not jsut other google talk users

I think this may have been around for awhile, just not publicly acknowledged yet. I searched goog411 and this result from October came up.

http://gesterling.wordpress.com/2006/10/19/da-cage-match-google-vs-jingle/

Wow. How did we not hear about this???

<< "For decades, most of the United States and Canada has used 4-1-1 as the telephone number for local directory assistance."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4-1-1 >>

In Israel its 144 . he he :)

----------
Maybe they'll reopen this service :
http://labs1.google.com/gvs.html

Who knows.

GOOG 411 was previously available at:

http://www.520find.com 1-877-520-FIND

AND

www dot 8vocal8 dot com 1-888-8-VOCAL-8

See the cached links at:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site%3Awww.520find.com

AND

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site%3Awww.8vocal8.DOT.com

(The word "8 dot com" is blocked for some reason, so I had to spell it out.)

If you call those number I listed above, you'll now be redirected to 1-800-GOOG-411.

I knew about 520find. Try this search.
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22You+can+say+Giovanni%27s+Pizzeria+or+just+pizza%22.+-google&btnG=Search&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=XJK

Yeah, the 520find.com service was pretty well know, but not as many people knew about:

www dot 8vocal8 dot com 1-888-8-VOCAL-8

The quality of speech synthesis is surprisingly low. Almost all recent products are better than that.