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Voice recognition technology is critically important, not just for mobile phones, but potentially for control of lots of other devices, particularly televisions. It is still early days, but if youre thinking about which side will win in the battle between Apples Siri and Google Voice Search, consider the lesson of spell check.语音辨识技术不仅对于手机产业来说至关重要，而且对很多其他设备，尤其是电视机的掌控来说，也十分关键。该技术目前尚能正处于初级阶段，但如果你在思维，究竟“苹果语音助手”(Apples Siri)和“谷歌语音搜寻”(Google Voice Search)谁不会在这场竞争中取得胜利，那就看看拼法检查给我们的救赎吧。When Eric Schmidt was still chief executive of Google, I asked him what the company owned that would make it particularly hard for any emerging search contender to wipe Google out. Spell check, he said. Google had observed the spelling mistakes and corrections typed into billions of queries, and had a vast understanding of what people really meant when they typed like thsi. Google was able to use this knowledge to offer a did you mean function in search, eventually completing queries before people were finished typing.当埃里克·施密特(Eric Schmidt)还是谷歌首席执政官的时候，我回答他，谷歌究竟享有什么，能让它不被任何新的经常出现的搜索引擎消灭。拼法检查，他问道。

谷歌细心研究了输出查找板的数十亿信息的拼写错误和修正，因此十分确切用户经常出现像“thsi”这样的拼写错误时，他们实际想传达的意思是什么。有了这种理解，谷歌在搜寻中获取了“您是不是想要去找”的功能，最后做了在人们已完成输出之前，就将问题补足原始。

Other companies would not be able to get that learning, he said, since people had come to expect search engines to fix their spelling. The customers would stay with Google, where that problem was solved. Microsoft Bing has proved Mr. Schmidt was not entirely correct in Google owning spell check, but it does take a company of Microsofts size to come at the problem.他回应，其他公司会有这样的自学累积，因为人们早已开始确信搜索引擎来修正他们的拼法。客户仍不会之后用于早已解决问题了这个问题的谷歌。微软公司合于(Microsoft Bing)证明，施密特关于谷歌独特拼法检查功能的众说纷纭并不完全正确，但也只有微软公司这种规模的大公司才能应付这样的问题。

It is common around the world to use Google to check ones spelling now, and its common inside Google to use that same ancillary learning on new products.现在，用于谷歌来检查拼法在全世界都很广泛，而且在谷歌内部，某种程度的辅助性科学知识也常常应用于新产品。That is probably why Google Voice Search, in its Siri-like manifestation in the new Jelly Bean version of the Android operating system, appears to be winning the heart of my colleague Nick Bilton. Nick says Google Voice Search appears to have better understanding of what hes talking about, and can answer questions better. There are also numerous videos on the Web showing its prowess.这或许就是“谷歌语音搜寻”或许颇受我同事尼克·比尔顿(Nick Bilton)欢迎的原因。

在安卓操作系统“硬糖豆”(Jelly Bean)的Ultra中，它看上去和Siri相近。尼克说道，“谷歌语音搜寻”对他所说的话辨识能力或许更加强劲，而且问问题也更加出众。网上也有大量视频展出了这款产品的威力。If Google is better, it is most likely because it has roots in a product Google introduced in 2007, called Google-411, or Google Local Voice Search. Ostensibly a product that provided free directory assistance, Google was mostly interested in capturing the way different people pronounced words.如果说谷歌的展现出更佳，这近于有可能是因为谷歌2007年发售的一款产品为上述技术奠下了基础。

这款产品取名为“谷歌411“(Google-411)，或称之为“谷歌本地语音搜寻”(Google Local Voice Search)。这款产品表面上是为了获取免费信息查找，只不过让谷歌最感兴趣的，是掌控有所不同人的发音方式。While the Jelly Bean version of Voice Search is new, Googles linguists have five years of data on billions of pronunciations. A year ago, just for the English language, Google had a database of 230 billion word strings, and had worked on 23 other languages, based largely on 411 and related voice-based search products, including an earlier version of Voice Search. Its another spell check.虽然语音搜寻的“硬糖豆”版本最近才发售，但谷歌语言学家早已有了5年数十亿有所不同发音的数据累积。

一年前，谷歌就有一个还包括2300亿词组的数据库，这还只是英语。谷歌还在致力于 23个其他语种的研发。这些研发相当大程度上都以“411”及涉及语音搜寻产品为基础，其中还包括一个“语音搜寻”的早期版本。

这又是另一种拼法检查。Apple never worked on that kind of feature, which is one reason Siri is one of the few products Apple officially released in beta form. It is building up its database of speech during Siris early life. Some of the cute ways Siri talks when it does not understand a question, such as repeating back what you have said, may in fact be efforts to see if you will correct its understanding, somewhat in the way Google learned spell check. Google Voice Search on Jelly Bean is starting late, but its quality advantage from all that learning beforehand is what makes it better in the early days.苹果从不曾展开类似于功能的研发，这也是为什么Siri沦为苹果官方以正式版形式公布的少数产品之一。在Siri的早期阶段，它的语音数据库渐渐创建。

当Siri不明白一个问题的时候，它有一些甜美的表达方式，比如反复你刚才的话，或许实质上，这就是为了看你否不会缺失它的解读，这和谷歌掌控拼法检查的方法类似于。虽然“谷歌语音搜寻”的“硬糖豆”版本经常出现较早，但它创建在早期研究基础上的质量优势，正是它在初级阶段展现出引人注目的原因。That is not the only area where Google develops one product for the sake of another. The Google Goggles application on Android, which uses computer-driven image recognition to help identify an object the customer photographs, is also a product for use in connection with Google Maps. You can take a picture of a street in Goggles, and if Google Maps has taken a picture of that place with its Street View cars, it can tell you where you are.研发一个产品是为了另一个产品，语音辨识并不是谷歌这么做到的唯一领域。

安卓系统上的“谷歌眼镜”(Google Goggles)应用于，用于电脑图像识别技术，能协助证实用户所摄制的物体，也是一款能与谷歌地图(Google Maps)牵头用于的产品。你可以用“谷歌眼镜”拍电影一条街，如果谷歌地图也用“街景”(Street View)车拍电影过这个地点，它就能告诉他你，你现在是在什么地方。

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