Google Search for Android now supports relationship-based voice commands

By Ketan Pratap | Updated: 12 February 2014 18:15 IST

Google has added a new feature to its Search that now allows users to utilise relationship-based voice commands. The new feature will allow Android smartphone users to make calls and sending messages directly via voice commands for contacts that have been associated with their relationship to the user.

The new feature by Google has been announced within days of rolling out a new Google Search update that enhanced its voice-recognition feature and allowed a user to make calls, send messages, and search using voice commands. The Mountain View giant confirmed the news on its Google+ page.

The new feature allows users to interact with the Android smartphone using relationship descriptor for making calls and sending messages via voice commands; however the relation has to be saved in the contacts.

For example, Android smartphone users starting on Wednesday can use voice commands for calling their mothers, by just saying "call Mom" and the device will make a call to whichever contact that has been saved having the said relation to the user.

The official Google+ post said, "Starting now, the Google search app on your Android phone will be able to pull up the right contact for you-and if you don't have Mom saved as "mom," it'll help you set that up quickly."

Android Police notes that currently the new voice-guided Google Search includes relationships namely father, mother, brother, sister, cousin, niece, nephew, aunt, uncle, grandmother, grandfather, wife, husband, girlfriend, and boyfriend. The site also adds that Google will be adding more relationship-based voice commands soon.

On Tuesday, Google rolled out a new update for its Search app for Android, that added a bunch of new features to the app. The Google Search features an improved and customizable time-to-leave system, which could be used to remind a user who should be somewhere by a certain time and will inform the user when should plan to leave instead.

The new update further added reminders support for more languages namely French, Italian, German, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazilian) and Russian.

In addition, Google had also rolled out an update for the Google Play Newsstand app that brought new features, such as headlines on the home screen with the Newsstand widget, and a new 'mini cards' feature that allows users to quickly access the headlines of the latest news.

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