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Memories of GOOG411! And probably same purpose of this. (1) (1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOOG-411 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOOG-411
by xattt 2y ago
Memories of GOOG411! And probably same purpose of this. (1)
(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOOG-411 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOOG-411
- sleek 2y agoYes! Instant memories
- ssl-3 2y agoI'm also reminded of TellMe. [0] In the days before we had pocket supercomputers, I used both of these services occasionally while out and about. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tellme_Networks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tellme_Networks
- qwertox 2y agoI don't think it's the same purpose. YouTube, TV and Movies offers enough speech samples and a lot of content is dubbed to other languages, and alot of this content already has the transcripts available. They know who's calling, and the greeting was something like "Hello again". They are catching up at building a competitive database of persons and their preferences at the scale of FAANG. They're moving over from collecting info for their models to collecting info from their users for their agents. This is what they need to offer good agents. But I might be wrong and it's just phoneme collection, as you speculate.
- nirvanatikku 2y agoAgreed on the broader use of data. That said, it’s not just about phoneme collection—different channels and UX modalities reach different audiences and contexts. Each channel ultimately delivers unique inputs, fueling more specialized and robust models tailored to those specific use cases.
- paxys 2y agoRegular human conversational voice, especially over the phone, is going to be a gold mine for training customer support AI agents. Actors reading movie scripts can't really provide that amount of relevance.
- mbauman 2y agoGOOG411 was actually very helpful in the dumbphone/limited-cell-data era! I'm not sure why I'd use this now. It also brings back memories of trying random (and known) 800 numbers from payphones.
- hyperdimension 2y agoI spent so much time as a kid in front of a payphone dialing 1-800-XXX-9999 numbers. That and wardialing (NPA) XXX-9999 numbers in my area code.
- m3kw9 2y agoMust have been tough thinking of an easy to remember phone number, and this ain’t it.
- verst 2y agoIt made more sense at the time. 411 is an actual directory service (similar to dialing 0 for the operator). [1] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/411_(telephone_number) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/411_(telephone_number)
- dylan604 2y agoWhat's the haps? What's the skinney? What's the 411? 3 questions that Gen-Zers probably have never heard asked and will never ask themselves
- riffic 2y agoN11 codes are a particular curiosity of the electromechanical switching systems used to set up circuits: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/N11_code https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/N11_code
- idiotsecant 2y agoSweet little duckling. Before the Internet you had to call a human on a phone to find phone numbers. 411 was a widely known number, similar to how widely known 911 is today.
- verst 2y agoI used to use GOOG-411 all the time before I had a smart phone. I must have provided so much training data that it is no surprise Google from early on has been very good at Speech-to-Text conversion of my particular accent :D
- ghurtado 2y agoDoes anyone else remember a very short lived Google experiment that allowed you to call a number, vocalize your search, and somehow without any additional steps, the results appeared on the browser in front of you? (which was not connected to the phone, or even logged into a Google account)
- ipaddr 2y agoSounds impossible. Are you calling on the same phone your browser is?
- krackers 2y agoIt might be possible if the browser plays some high frequency inaudible tone that's picked up by the phone
- idiotsecant 2y agoWhy impossible? You'd just have to register your phone number so Google knew which account to connect which telephone session
- justsid 2y ago> which was not connected to the phone, or even logged into a Google account
- aviperl 2y agoThe best part of GOOG411 was that they would connect you to the phone number, free of charge, across borders. List a business with a Google voice number and you can call in, check messages, and _dial out_ from Google voice. Free international calls! I was in school in Canada where we had a payphone in a hallway. People heard me randomly saying "Funny Business Name, City State ... Connect me" into the phone so much, it became a running joke. When I eventually got my own phone, I transferred the number and I still have it.
- ChrisArchitect 2y agowoo, that's a throwback! Goodbye to an old friend: 1-800-GOOG-411 (2010) https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/goodbye-to-old-friend-1-800-goog-411.html https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/goodbye-to-old-frien...