“OK Google” Hotword Recognition Gains Support For New Languages

One of the cool features of the Moto X was its ability to be activated without the user having to touch the phone. It works even when the phone’s display is off. Google introduced something similar with Android 4.4 KitKat, although the difference is that users had to have the screen enabled before it worked.

However apart from that, it works the same and all the user would have to say is, “OK Google” to activate the voice feature. For those who have yet to try it, you probably should as it is pretty cool. That being said, Google has recently announced that they will be expanding the “OK Google” hotword recognition to additional languages.

Previously it was only available to English speaking users, but later support for French and German was added, but now the good news for those who speak other languages is that support for you could have been added. This includes Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Korean, Spanish, and Japanese, bringing the total of non-English language support to nine.

The changes made might not be made available instantly and could depend, so you’ll want to keep an eye out for it. It should also be noted that the new update to Google Now which allows the hotword to be activated from any screen (not just the home screen) will not be available for non-English languages for now.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Cellphones
Tags: Google, google now