FROM THE WORLD OF TECH
Paul Carter
Getting to grips with voice search
2018 looks as though it will be the year of the voice search, certainly if the volume of adverts on television is anything to go by. The major players have all launched ‘voice assistants’ for the home, with Amazon’s Echo, Google’s Home and Apple’s new HomePod all proving popular. Voice search is also available on most smart phones and tablets, with Apple devices responding to ‘Hey Siri’ and Google Androids to ‘Ok Google’.
Google has opened voice search to all by providing a clever facility within the Chrome browser. Start up the browser and go to the Google home page (www.google.co.uk). The search box contains a microphone icon, click on it and start speaking. For some direct questions, such as ‘what is the weather forecast?’, Google will speak back to you. For other searches it will return a list of results.
Note, the first time you try this, you may have to agree to allow Chrome to use your computer’s microphone. For mobile users, the same facility is available on the Google Chrome app.