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September 7, 2010

Google Scribe

Update (Nov. 2011): Now that Google Labs was closed, Scribe is only available in Blogger in Draft.

Google launched a very interesting tool that offers suggestions as you type: Google Scribe [updated link]. It's not exactly the service I anticipated 3 years ago, but Google Scribe works surprisingly well. For example, I started to type "This works sur" and Google suggested "This works surprisingly well", which is exactly what I wanted to type. Instead of typing 14 characters, I could only type "1" or press Enter to select the first suggestion.


"Google Scribe provides text completion service. Using information from what you have already typed in a document, Google Scribe provides related word or phrase completion suggestions. In addition to saving keystrokes, Google Scribe's suggestions indicate correct or popular phrases to use," explains Google.


The nice thing about this service is that you don't need to use Google's editor. You can add a bookmarklet to your browser and use Google Scribe in Gmail, Blogger, Google Docs or on any web page that includes text fields.


Google Scribe only works for English right now, but I'm sure that Google will add many other languages in the future. If you don't like to see suggestions for all the words you type, enable the on-demand mode (Ctrl+Shift+J) and you'll only see suggestions when you press Tab.

Since Google uses data extracted from web pages, you'll see a lot of strange suggestions like this pattern from Google's navigation bar:


or this text, which is frequently used on IngentaConnect's site:


{ Thanks, Robert. }

61 comments:

  1. How come I get the feeling this is a fancy research tool to fine tune Google's Translation tools.

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  2. I tried it, but somehow it was disturbing me more than helping. I found myself often waiting for it to autocomplete my ideas rather than write them down myself – but I guess this might be just the novelty effect. Time will tell whether this will become an essential feature in the future (perhaps with some tuning to make it disrupt the normal flow less?) or just another cool experiment that doesn't quite work for practical use.

    (Comment powered by Google Scribe)

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  3. It looks like it works on the iPhone too!

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  4. Linguistic minimalism. Yay!

    Not only do I not need to remember my directions, phone numbers and just about everything else that is at the tap of a button, I don't have to remember how to spehl. Score!

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  5. Now - google can write poems, fairy tales... anything.
    Just write first letter and than let him use first suggestions :)
    One space makes:
    " There are no comments for this user yet and can not believe that there is anything you would not believe how much I loved them all..."
    Letter "O":
    "Otherwise, they will become more apparent from the following detailed description of these properties..."

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  6. Most of the time, it seemed to just get in my way, but out of curiosity, I tried writing 'big words' and that worked surprisingly well. I could see a use for this in academia.

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  7. "The following content has been identified by the YouTube community as being potentially offensive or inappropriate messages to two male students at the University of California at Berkeley." Lol, the default sentence if you just hit [space]-1-[space]-1-, etc...

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  8. http://twitter.com/GoogleScribe

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  9. That last pic, maybe Google is trying out a new advertising strategy by trying to slip in trademarks into peoples text.

    @ the [space]-1-[space]-1 comment: That is one impressive Markov-chain

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  10. I have no clue where it goes on forever like this one in an effort to help those people.
    -on giving 1-space-2-space-3-.....0... 1-2-..

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  11. This is cool, I would so enable this if it were a Gmail lab! Could do with a bit of tweaking, but so far it's nice. I hope EspaƱol is added soon!

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  12. Have any query auto-completed and you'll end up with "ye shall know them by their fruits" which keeps on repeating forever.

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  13. Hey,i checked it as per your example but it not works in mine.Is there any installation needed?

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  14. -nothing but another form of theraphy-

    This is really interesting..

    I wanted to see what it would create on its own when seeded by a single letter.. it usually ended in a loop that started & ended with "nothing but another form of therapy"..

    Here's sample output for the letter "a"

    <and then there is another way to get around them and they are nothing but another form of therapy for these patients is not known whether these are the only ones who can not afford to pay for their own users and groups to their Friends / Favorites list yet, so I'ma keep popping up in their own right and do not want to be related to their particular field or industry in which they are attached to their respective owners and are strictly for viewing and printing of these books are nothing but another form of therapy.

    I also posted the full alphabet output here: http://blog.cankoklu.com/google-scribe-abcs-nothing-but-another-form-o

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  15. Amazing Google Scribe provides text completion service. This tool Offer Google Scribe provides related word or phrase completion suggestions and many more its really good and Effective for all user Thanks again to provide unique Information as well.

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  16. The first thing I do on every OpenOffice installation is turn of its word completion feature. It's intensely and consistently annoying, and almost never right. And even if it were, I need time ot finish my thought, damn it! All this will do is further atrophy our ability to express ouselves in words.

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  17. I read this and its good for the users.By this user can get easily that he want to type.so,he can save his time and get the right result.I think good launching by google.

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  18. If we wont have to type anymore, what the fuck will we do with our lives?
    Our brain responsibilities are slowly being transfered to machines.
    We should be scared.
    Seriously.Scared.

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  19. Want infinite recursion? Try "By their fruits ye shall know them".

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  20. It seems like the query logs which stored from the users is developed as an app.Completely works on machine learning the query logs.

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  21. -nothing but another form of theraphy-
    Nice ideaa..

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  22. This feature is ethically very responsible too. Try typing "What the fuc". it will not give you the "k".

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  23. Nice, but I'm assuming theirs an ulterior motive behind this... perhaps to help improve Googles Translation tool?

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  24. Gave my typing speed about 80% boost. Negative boost that is. It's WAY faster to type by hand - even the accuracy isn't improved.

    Just one question - why?

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  25. Seriously this looks like another one of those experiments that look and sound promising but fail in execution.

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  26. Cool! But it also means Google is recording everything you type, does it not?

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  27. OpenOffice has had this functionality for a while now...usually Google is on top of things but as far as I'm concerned this is playing feature catchup.

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  28. I really doubt that OpenOffice has this feature. This requires a huge database of n-grams obtained from a lot of documents. Google uses a similar database to build statistical language models for Google Translate.

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  29. utilities like this will cater only a section of people not to forget the formatting of text

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  30. Frankly said, "This feature is ethically very responsible too. Try typing "What the fuc". it will not give you the "k"."

    Yeah, me too, I started to write, "What the Fuc" and it wouldn't complete it for me. So I had to write the entire thing myself: "What the Fuchs Trans-Antarctic Expedition in the fifties achieved . . ." Sigh. I guess Google Scribe never heard of Sir Vivian Ernest Fuchs, British explorer and geologist. Oh well, back to the drawing board.

    These prudish devices. Like those forums that won't let you write cockamanie or niggardly - that latter got a civil servant fired in New Mexico. Yep, we're on the way to Idiocracy all right. Heaven help you if you want to write something about Lord Cockswain.

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  31. There are nice results if you type "Do you know Michael Schwarz?", see a German blog post at http://michael-schwarz.blogspot.com/2010/09/google-scribe-ausprobiert-noch-nicht.html.

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  32. This could be a fascinating tool for non-english people who want to type in english. For instance, I typed: "Well, that's all" and it added "folks". If you didn't know anything about Porky Pig, how would you know to add that? Neat.

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  33. Not content with scanning your email, documents, calendar, web searches, Google now want to know what you're typing as well??

    No thanks

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  34. Missing some search results ...

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  35. Yahoo system is more advance in this case, but its not bad for google either. If you type in (suck my ... ) then something very funny comes up.

    Then I tried to actually type in the two words I look for due to work only rooms (also funny thing comes up), http://www.onlyrooms.com ,

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  36. what is nice about this? what is the point of slowly typing and selecting words you were about to type?

    this has been integrated into search for a long, long time. someone explain the point?

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  37. Awesome tool, it will save us time typing. Thanks again Google.

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  38. This is the first feature I always disable on my computer devices.

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  39. red rum... red rum...

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  40. It was like someone with a nasal-like voice more grating than Edith Bunker constantly interrupting you to finish your sentences ...incorrectly

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  41. I find this very interesting. It minimizes the keys you need to type, but may take a bit longer. For some people that is not a bad trade off. This helps more illiterate people get online and up and functional. That's good and bad to me. Could this possibly affect a younger generation negatively? They could use this as a crutch perhaps? Sort of like texting slang. Overall, I like this new feature. I may not be as apt to use it, but I'm sure there are people who will.

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  42. how freakin' lazy can you be to save typing 14 characters? obesity on the rise?


    YES.

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  43. Chrome Extension: https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/jlhhbmloafbaonaondjcedenomeeggda

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  44. I hate it on my iPhone and I'm not even going to bother trying it with Google. I write faster than Google can think. If it's anything like texting on the phone, all I would be doing is going back and correcting the autofills. Aarrgh!

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  45. Yes, but it can be a great toy for writing poetry :) so beautifully random! Digital Serendipity, indeed:

    "Hello, my name is Chris and I am really looking forward to the next level of the individual and the community at large and the small number of patients with a history of their own and do not want to be related to the search result can be bookmarked to maintain the filter for future use at Recent Searches for neutral Higgs bosons in e minor for clavichord..."

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  46. Anon - what a bizarre comment! In the time it took you to write it, you could have given scribe a try, then you wouldn't have to make suppositions, and could instead give a proper critical analysis!

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  47. That's what was suggested after I typed in "I" and followed first suggestion...
    "I have a pain in the neck and the throat is a common problem in the first place and the people who are not in the same way as the first step to doing all this and more on Facebook in the album named after the famous TV show in the next few years ago and I have been a number of different ways " Complete rubbish...

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  48. I cannot use Google Scribe bookmarklet ;(

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  49. Now, if you start with space it runs in an infinite loop:
    The following content has been identified by the YouTube community as being potentially offensive or inappropriate messages to two male students and female students in the class of the parametered object corresponding to the first to comment on this page to a friend or colleague will receive an email notification when a new article is added to the group of patients with a history of the world and the world of the living room and dining room with a view to share videos with friends and family to enjoy a good meal and a drink for the first time in the future and the future of the world and the world of the living room and dining room with a view to share videos with friends and family to enjoy a good meal and a drink for the first time in the future and the future of the world and the world of the living room...

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  50. As a non-native speaker I like Googles scribe a lot and it would be very helpful if it would work in Google docs

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  51. What more to expect from the number one most visited site n the world, Google sure do know how to surprise people with its features to offer, google scribe maybe useful for some people but other sees it as a form of laziness.

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  52. Oh wow if scribed work in Google docs that would be amazing @ Anonymous (Jan 18,), I didn't even think about that before lol. It's these guys never stop working on new things and concepts that add value to the Internet.

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  53. I use scribe often I am looking forward to it.
    I basically use google for all my need nowadays.

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  54. Is its offline version available? also in when I tried a lot since month or so.in online mode, why it is not working? though i used all the tip given by Scribe team? please help me.

    mail : mkpatel2001@yahoo.com

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  55. Over a year ago I was using Google Scribe often and successfully. Now when I attempt to open the extension, I am routed to my IGoogle homepage. why?

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  56. Not sure if it's my computer showing its age or my typing going to inhumanly fast levels, but I seem to type faster than the predicted phrases come up.

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