{"id":673,"date":"2008-11-20T03:28:00","date_gmt":"2008-11-20T10:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.perivision.net\/wordpress\/?p=673"},"modified":"2008-11-20T13:59:02","modified_gmt":"2008-11-20T20:59:02","slug":"google-voice-search-british-accents-and-odd-results","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.perivision.net\/wordpress\/2008\/11\/google-voice-search-british-accents-and-odd-results\/","title":{"rendered":"Google voice search, british accents and odd results"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m American, but as a young budding musician in the 80’s, I was fully on board with English music (especially Punk), my guitar instructor was English, watch more then my share of BBC (young ones!!) and then lived in Oxford for 3+ years. So I can pull a pretty good accent when needed. So after reading this article on Digg explaining how various British accents will give odd results, I just had to give it a try.<\/p>\n

But British iPhone owners had less luck when speaking the word “iPhone” into the application <\/a>— a Scottish user was offered a porn website after it mistook his search for “sex,” the Telegraph reported.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

A user from Surrey, south of London, had his request mistaken for “myspace” and “Einstein” was another option offered for “iPhone” spoken with a Kent accent, it said.<\/em><\/p>\n

The only British accent which correctly understood the request was for a user from Yorkshire, northern England, although he was also offered “bonfire.”<\/em><\/p>\n

A Welsh accent gave the suggestions “gorillas” and “kitchen sink.”<\/em><\/p>\n

“I’ve got a traditional Kentish accent and the thing kept on spitting back ridiculous things,” said Roger Ellinson, 26, from Maidstone in Kent, southeastern England.<\/em><\/p>\n

“I asked it to find my nearest pizza<\/a> take away and it came back with something about volcanoes,” he added.<\/em><\/p>\n

“I asked it to find my nearest pub and it gave me a link to some kind of weird dating website,” said Ellinson. “I’ll have to try to put on my best American accent to get it to work.” <\/em><\/p>\n

… so I thought, well, I’ll give this a go.. I tried iPhone and got, Austin. Hmm.. Austin powers maybe?<\/p>\n

local pub – child<\/p>\n

My space – marsyas. Did not know that was even a word. Seems to be about Audio Signal processing or some Greek mythology.\u00a0 But then, what odd word does NOT have some sort of connection with Greek mythology?<\/p>\n

BMW – Bellingham, wa.<\/p>\n

Cal Bears – calabasas<\/p>\n

Water – walter<\/p>\n

local airport – locoroco (northern accent) lukia airport (london accent)<\/p>\n

A funny bit is when I tried ‘take away curry’, it got it right and sent me to a shoppe in Belfast.\u00a0 How nice.<\/p>\n

Here was a surprise though… It got Aluminum right!!\u00a0 Well well.\u00a0 Got ‘my Simon’ and then ‘littmans’ when I tried vitamins though. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

I would say that on the most part it got things right especially long queries like ‘auto repair shop, or golden gate bridge’.\u00a0 Still, I have a friend from down under.\u00a0 Will have to see what happens when he tries it. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

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