Forget Keyboards: We Dictated This Story on Google Docs - Digits - WSJ
Google now offers a voice-dictation tool on its Google Docs app, the latest move by Silicon Valley to make keyboards obsolete.
We tested the new service by dictating this story. See that version below, complete with typos.
Users can now speak to their computers to compose memos, messages and reports in Google Docs. The application previously supported third-party voice-dictation tools, but in September the Alphabet Inc.GOOGL -0.58% unit unveiled a new “voice-typing” tool. This week, Google enables users to also edit and format documents with voice commands, and it started prompting users to try the new tool.
Voice dictation has grown in popularity in recent years as its accuracy improved. Fueling its growth are advances in artificial intelligence that help computers decipher what people are saying.
Voice dictation is the primary way to interact with many virtual assistants on smartphones, such as Google Now and Apple Inc.'sAAPL +0.16% Siri. Google’s speech-recognition technology has gotten so good at recognizing words that it now automatically generates captions for YouTube videos.
While the technology can be a major help for disabled users, Silicon Valley’s larger goal is to get consumers to interact with computers more naturally. That means talking to them — like another person — rather than typing on a keyboard.
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