It seemed inevitable that geeks were going to do some geeky magic with Google voice search for the desktop and in less than two weeks after the technology was launched at Google’s big search event mid-June – the geekery has begun. A New York City developer lab called Breakfast has released an open source project called Verbalizer that anyone can use to as a microphone for performing Google voice searches while standing in a room away from your computer.
Breakfast says that, out of the box, touching any spot on the Verbalizer device will trigger a Google voice search from up to 10 meters away. So, imagine a computer monitor hanging on a wall in your living room. A Verbalizer could be placed by the door so that when you walk into a room, you can ask it to search for anything on the Internet, without sitting down at a keyboard.
Here’s how Breakfast describes the Verbalizer:
“The Verbalizer connects wirelessly to your computer via Bluetooth and when triggered, opens google.com in a new tab and activates Voice Search. An audio notification is played signaling Google is ready for your query, which is spoken into the on-board mic. The board is Arduino compatible and we left some I/O pins open, so it’s easy for anyone to jump in and create something nutty with it.”
Breakfast held a working group earlier in the week so developers could put Verbalizer through the paces and create new uses for it. See the video below for what they came up with.