Skip to footer

OK Google: Hands-free search debuts on Chrome Beta

No need to wash your hands of cookie dough if you forget how many ounces are in a cup while cooking. Google has integrated its hands-free search function, OK Google, into its new Chrome Beta.

|
Google
The question "how many ounces in a cup?" just went hands-free. Google has included voice search into its new Chrome Beta.

Since Google first debuted its search engine in 1998, heading to Google and typing in a query to the search engine has been many Web surfers' first stop on the Internet.

Now Google wants you to forgo a key part of that process: typing.

On Thursday, Google released the new Chrome Beta that further pushes its hands-free search function, “OK Google.” The new beta version of the browser also offers more “supervised user” management (read: parental controls).

“If you've ever tried to cook and search at the same time—say, when your hands are covered in flour and you need to know how many ounces are in a cup—you know it can be tricky,” says Google in a blog. “With the latest Chrome Beta, you can search by voice on Google—no typing, clicking or hand-washing required.” 

Google introduced ‘OK Google’ in November as a part of its regular search engine function. It was rolled out then with similar intentions – released just before Thanksgiving, the search-engine company pointed out that not having to wash your hands to type can make preparing a meal far easier.

This is the first time it has been rolled out as a built-in addition to Chrome, however. The version released in November was a Chrome extension.

English-language Chrome users running Windows, Mac, or Linux will be able to access the function over the next few days, and additional language support will be coming soon, Google says.

Here’s how it works: when you download the new Chrome, you’ll see a little microphone icon in the Google search box. Click on that icon and then click “Enable ‘Ok Google’”. When you say “OK Google” out loud, Google will search whatever you say after that statement.

Aside from searching, OK Google can be used to set alarms and set reminders using Google Now (“OK Google, remind me to pick up dessert at 6 p.m. tonight”).

In addition to hands-free searching, the new Google Chrome Beta also offers extended “supervised user” controls. Families can select one member to be a “supervised user” and then that user has the ability to manage what sites the other users can access. This update is available for Windows, Mac, Linux, and will soon be available for Chromebooks, says Google. 

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to OK Google: Hands-free search debuts on Chrome Beta
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Technology/2014/0228/OK-Google-Hands-free-search-debuts-on-Chrome-Beta
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe