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Comment by abstractbill | Hacker News Reader

I was very impressed when I found out Google was running a free 411 phone information service just so that they could gather a ton of data to train new voice-recognition algorithms. That's real long-term thinking, and definitely makes them an AI company in my book.

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Sadly now that it has served its purpose, it has been shut down. Granted I hardly ever need it now that I have a smartphone but it was very useful when I didn't!

1-800-BING-411 is still operational.

http://www.discoverbing.com/mobile/411/

I wonder if Microsoft is running that service for the same reason or simply because Google had a 411 a product Microsoft thought they needed one too.

I'm pretty sure it's the latter. Microsoft's MO lately has been to rip off anything that makes their primary competitors unique, so they can go on being a one-stop shop in any industry they believe themselves to be a part of. And since Google is both a big competitor and lacking any central concept to its business, Microsoft will pretty much rip off anything they do.

yet, microsoft has deployed voice recognition to some hundred millions users over time, so they could have copied that idea to improve something they were already selling.

Microsoft might be using it for data for Tellme (http://www.tellme.com/) a 2007 acquisition.

You can still use it on Android. Open the Maps app, activate the voice search, then say what you're looking for. It shows the location with two buttons: navigate or call the phone number.

Agreed. I've had "GOOG-411" programmed in my contacts for ages. I called the other day for old time's sake instead of searching and found it was no longer operational. That was a little disappointing. :-/

A company I once worked at, 800-Free-411 is still operational.

They're Ad-funded, so they should in theory be independent of a larger company's whim to shut down sluggish divisions.

Why do you think the search feature in Android phones requires an internet connection?

I don't know about you, but I haven't thought of Google as being anything other than an AI company for a while now. It has actually surprised me for a while now how little AI most of their products have, which I guess might be evidence that I was wrong.

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