Google has developed a new web gadget to open the gateway to political speeches. This tool will be a serious headache for McCain who flips his position all the time. But, it also is a tool that will allow the average Internet user to stay politically informed as well.
Today, the Google speech team (part of Google Research) is launching the Google Elections Video Search gadget, our modest contribution to the electoral process. With the help of our speech recognition technologies, videos from YouTube's Politicians channels are automatically transcribed from speech to text and indexed. Using the gadget you can search not only the titles and descriptions of the videos, but also their spoken content. Additionally, since speech recognition tells us exactly when words are spoken in the video, you can jump right to the most relevant parts of the videos you find.
With this Google tool, you can type in a word to find out when and what your candidate has said when using that word. For instance, if you want to find out what Barack Obama's message has been concerning Iran, just type the word in the search engine and the tool will take you to speeches where the word is mentioned. This tool can also be a great way to catch flip floppers. Now politicians can be held accountable for what they have said in the past with the click of a button.
Here is the link to add this feature to your browser.
It is too bad that McCain does not understand the value of the Internet. According to Google, the most well-managed YouTube site will have a little advantage. The tool enables a candidate to select certain videos for presentation. I'm sure McCain would not want anyone to see his green lime speech again, so he may want to pay attention to Google capabilities.
The gadget only searches videos uploaded to YouTube's Politicians channels, which include videos from Senator Obama's and Senator McCain's campaigns, as well as those from dozens of other candidates and politicians. It usually takes less than a few hours for a video to appear in the index after it has been published on YouTube. Candidates can control the videos that appear in the gadget by managing the content they upload to YouTube.
It is great that Google is making it easier for people to become politically informed. New technology is now a big player in the political process, which hopefully will aid our progressive candidates.