Kellen
Back in 2010, Google introduced Personal Voice Recognition through its Search app as a way to learn how you – as a unique individual – speak. The idea was pretty simple – Google had created a Search app that accommodated all sorts of speech models, factoring in variations in pitch, pace, gender, and age, but realized that it could get even smarter.
It was an opt-in service that was tied to your Google account. By opting-in, Google would associate recordings of words that you asked it to automatically build you a custom a speech model. The more you used your voice to search on Google, the smarter and better your speech model became.
Today, Personal Voice Recognition is officially dead. Actually, according to Google Support, it died in Google Search v3.3. Since we are now on v3.4, it died some time ago, though none of us realized it. Google notes that any “existing Personalized Voice Recognition data has been removed from your” Dashboard and is no longer associated with your account.
Google did not say why they are no longer using this custom speech tool, only that it has been retired. Since it was introduced in 2010, it could be that their voice technology has improved enough to no longer need individual and personal data to create a great voice search experience.
R.I.P.
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