By Charles Mgbolu

Last week, search giant; Google, launched it’s first ever voice recognition technology for Africa as part of it’s long term bid to extend it’s influence on the continent, even as Smartphone owners in South Africa now can enter a voice command in Afrikaans and Zulu to receive search results via Google’s search engine.

However, indications are emerging that this new technology may be hitting Nigeria next. Earlier, in the year, during the Google Nigeria Day event held inside the University of Lagos, Akoka main campus, in which the Google navigation maps for Nigeria had been launched, Google’s vice president, technology, English, Middle East, Asia and Africa, EMEAA , Mr Nelson Matos had hinted to ICT news journalists that there were strong plans in the pipeline to involve some of Google’s already existing technology with some African languages. He had mentioned specifically that there are plans by Google to inculcate it’s news in the local languages.

He had said “it will not be easy… help of every one will be needed”.

Since the Google on_line map domain featured a very elaborate and almost detailed navigable map of the country, Google had hinted, it intended to work more closely and intimately with the Nigerian people. Now, this recently, launched  voice recognition technology, coming only a few months after has sent spiral waves of anticipation down the IT sector as sector observers wait to see which country come next on Google’s list.

However, according to Mr Charles Urhoboghara, assistant manager (Media) at africapracticeR&B; the firm that handle’s Google Public Relations activities on the continent, in a telephone chat with this reporter said “the story is only breaking and details are still sketchy at the moment”.

The latest launch forms part of Google’s mission to nudge more Africans online and onto its sites such as Gmail, Maps and Chat. At present, Africans make up 14 per cent of the world’s population but only five per cent of its Internet users.

Google says “Speaking into the phone comes naturally to us, whilst typing is sometimes a challenge on a small screen. We developed Voice Search to make it easier for users to search the web simply by simply speaking their query”.

Mr Mattos had said at the event that since basically, the entire process would involve languages alien to the teams working on the projects, help from local sources would be highly anticipated.

The technology is also using computer and human translators to ensure there is sufficient content on the Internet to make searches in such languages worthwhile.

Etienne Barnard, a linguists expert from North West University, helped to build a database of one million recognisable words for each language by finding volunteers to ask common questions.

Surprisingly, Bernard says there has been mixed feelings to this as they see speech as a human thing and don’t want to talk to a machine.
Key to Google’s mission is to capitalise on the widespread use of mobile phones, which outnumber desktop computers tenfold..

Google Baraza is one of the flagship projects it is using to make itself more relevant. Users can send in questions such as “Where can I buy a reasonably priced camera in Accra?” and “What is the best university in Nigeria?” and other users get points for providing helpful answers.

But there are still obstacles to getting Africa online.In a continent where literacy remains a significant issue, the company hopes it will encourage more people to get online in a way that suits them and has pledged to deliver search results in audio in the not too distant future.