San Francisco — With the constant rise in the use of Arabic online, Thanks to Google Mobile Blog that made the happy announcement that its Arabic speakers can now use Voice Search in Hebrew and Arabic on their iOS and ask Google for directions out loud, which it hopes will boost the usability of its search service in the region across its search, maps and translation services, as well as a raft of Android applications.
The internet search company, which introduced the service in Dubai on Monday, presented its Arabic-language voice search function, allowing users to speak into their phones to perform searches and use other services such as Google Maps.
The service was developed with the assistance of native Hebrew and Arabic speakers from across the Middle East, including the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Israel.
However, support is not just confined to those regions only, but the program should be able to recognize the dialects spoken there. Virtually one million Arabic words in six dialects were initially experimented on to devise the application, which will continue to learn the languages as people use it, according to Najeeb Jarrar, Google’s product marketing manager in the Middle East and North Africa.
The company said the new launch was an illustration of its commitment to bringing its global services to the Middle East. “Google is leading the way in mobile and speech recognition innovation,” said Jarrar. “We wanted users to be able to do voice search with their accents,” he said.
In an illustration of the new technology presented to the media in Dubai, Google’s software successfully recognized the word “marhaba”, which means “hello” or “welcome” in Arabic. Google Maps also recognized the phrase “Burj Khalifa”, added Jarrar.
However, as there are so many different dialects in Arabic, Google has enabled the option to choose between 10 regional accents including Egyptian, Lebanese, Bahraini, Palestinian and Qatari, among others.
According to Jarrar, the company enrolled local staff to manage the project. These local employees spent weeks with native Arabic speakers recording each dialect. The final stages took place in the US where the company’s voice labs developed the final solution, as the Google speech scientists refined the speech patterns that were provided by the native speakers.
“Voice search has traditionally be in English,” Jarrar said. “Arabic is a much more difficult for us to be able to make work as a voice search. Words have additions to them that can change the meaning of the word, or the word itself. Even the position of the word in the sentence can totally change the meaning. This presents a huge challenge.
Now, utilizing Google’s speech recognition technology, it is easier than ever to do a quick Google search in Arabic using nothing more than your voice. Testing the Egyptian dialect, the voice search was almost flawless, and is a huge advantage for Arabic speakers who want to get the most out of voice control features on their phones.
“We feel that the service is at a point where it works. However, it is important to add, the service learns. The more people use it, the better it will get.”
Nevertheless, it did not immediately recognize the place name “Al Ain” in the demonstration of the software. Jarrar acknowledged the software was not absolutely flawless, but said it would improve with time. “With more usage it is going to improve further,” he said.
Google said that the service is now accessible on both Android and iOS. However, it said Android users would require 2.2 or higher to be able to use the service.
“We are witnessing a huge increase in smart phones, especially in the Middle East,” he added. “In the Gulf alone, we are seeing over 100% penetration. One of the reasons we are recognizing this is because people want their lives on the move, they want their friends, they want their photos, and so on. Phones are getting smarter, and this is enabling this.
The Arabic voice seamlessly works with search, maps, translate, as well as a number of other services, including a number of Android applications such as Google Goggles, all of which are live now.
The service originally launched in English in 2008. It follows the launch of YouTube in 13 countries around the Arab world in recent months.
When asked when the service would expand beyond the current six accents–Emirati, Qatari, Kuwaiti, Egyptian, Jordanian and Lebanese, Jarrar commented: “We are working to make the service more accurate before we release more accents. When we feel happy about the quality of the service in another accent, we will launch it.”
To try it out for yourself, you can download the Google Voice app from the iTunes store or from the Android Market.