End of GOOG-411, Google's "phoneme harvesting operation" - via Pogue's Posts

Here's a quick link to a recent "Pogue's Post":


Farewell, GOOG-411
NYT 10/14/10


Google:  In Service of Data


"On Nov. 12, Google will turn of 800-GOOG-411 forever...It was one of the best, juiciest, most useful services in all phonedom...In case you missed it, GOOG-411 is a free, voice-activated directory assistance service..."


Pogue goes on to quote Google's Marissa Mayer, from a 2007 InfoWorld presentation:
"If you want us to build a really robust speech model, we need a lot of phonemes, which is a syllable as spoken by a particular voice with a particular intonation.  So we need a lot of people talking, saying things so we can ultimately train off of that.  So 1-800-GOOG-411 is about that:  Getting a bunch of different speech samples."




RELATED
Comments to Pogue's Post, Farewell, GOOG-411


Schalkwyk, J., Beeferman, D. Beaufays, F., Byrne B., Chelba, C., Cohen, M., Garret, M., Strope, B. (Google, Inc.)  Google Search by Voice: A case study (pdf)




Google Shuts Down GOOG-411
Google Operating System Blog


SOMEWHAT RELATED
Android phones are secretly collecting private user data
Andrew Wozny, Canada Social Media Examiner


Some Android apps caught covertly sending GPS data to advertisers
Ryan Paul, Ars Technica


Best Practices for Handling Android User Data
Nick Kralevich, Tim Bray, Android Developers 8/4/10 


Why Google keeps your data forever, tracks you with ads
Nate Anderson, Ars Technica


Google's Eric Schmidt: You can trust us with your data
Shane Richman, Telegraph UK 7/10/10