Google introduces Voice Typing for Docs (and it transcribes too!)

Hooray!

I rely heavy on voice typing for messaging and searching on my phone.  I type pretty darn fast, but I talk and think way faster than I type and I just lose ideas before they make the page.

Along with several other enhancements (a See New Changes feature and research tools that I will describe in upcoming posts), on Wednesday, Google introduced a voice typing feature that resembles a dictation app.

It’s free.  It works in the Chrome browser. And it is available in an array of 40 languages!

My test below reveals that it is also pretty darn accurate and pretty darn sweet.  (Sure, I talked a little slower that usual and sure, I will need to  edit a bit.)

Here’s Google’s official video

To review, here’s how it works:

So what?  This is free.  And I think it is huge.

I suspect it will allow our early (and more reluctant) writers to get their ideas on a page without the inhibitions of spelling and vocabulary and limited keyboard speed.  It can support language learner. Getting the early content out there without barriers may encourage more careful editing and tweaking.

There’s another major benefit.

I opened YouTube in one browser window and a Google Doc in another and made a discovery.  Voice Typing is also darn good at transcribing video and audio!  This is huge for researchers.  It will be a game changer for capturing interviews. And it is huge for captioning video and podcasts for accessiblity and for flipping and for taking notes about video.

And we can now so easily write and cook (etc.) at the same time, and save our work to the platform many of us call home.

Filed under: Google Apps, Google Docs, writing