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Google’s new location-aware voice search would have been great to debut at I/O

Quietly, Google introduced some new location-aware search functions in voice search over the last couple of weeks. The feature lets you perform several searches based on your location, with Google looking at its Maps data to figure out what you’re talking about. For example, you can voice search “how tall is this?” and looking at your location, Google can tell you the height of the building that you’re looking at.

Oddly, with all of the fanfare that was made of Google Now and its new “Now on Tap” features at I/O, Google has let this feature go completely unannounced. As noted by Search Engine Land, Behshad Behzadi, Director of Conversational Search for Google, did mention the feature at the SMX Paris search marketing event, though. Not only that, but Behzadi seemingly showed what looks to be almost-done Google marketing videos showing off the feature.

Danny Sullivan captured some of the demos from the event on Twitter, and you can check out those videos below. In the two videos, Google showed off a variety of commands that are now active in voice search. You can ask things like “What’s the name of this church?”, “When does this restaurant open?”, “How deep is this lake?”, “How long is this river?”, “Call this conference center.” and more.

Here are some clips:

https://twitter.com/dannysullivan/status/608303740840493056

https://twitter.com/dannysullivan/status/608305319748464642

https://twitter.com/dannysullivan/status/608304520897134592

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Avatar for Stephen Hall Stephen Hall

Stephen is Growth Director at 9to5. If you want to get in touch, follow me on Twitter. Or, email at stephen (at) 9to5mac (dot) com, or an encrypted email at hallstephenj (at) protonmail (dot) com.


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