From now on you can use a Google Now style voice search on your chrome browser. It is now available in the latest Chrome stable version for the desktop, and all you have to do is get the new update by taking the following steps:

• Launch your Chrome browser and open the settings.
• Click on Help and after a few seconds you will be prompted to relaunch Chrome.
• After you restart Chrome, just head to Google and click the microphone icon in the search box.
• You will have to give permission for Google to use your microphone (look for the bar on top), depending on your privacy settings.
• Then you speak.

Testing it out, we can tell you this isn’t as “fancy” as was shown off at Google I/O. More than likely this is just the beginning, and a more advanced form of the search will arrive a bit down the road.

Have you started using voice search? What do you think of the changes?

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Google Now recently launched on iOS devices giving iDevice users a taste of the personal assistant service and predictive search, although it does not run in the background. Those using Android 4.1 and above can simply swipe up from the bottom of the screen to get to Now, but it’s different on the Galaxy S4.

The Galaxy S4 has its own S-Voice assistant. The good news is that using Google Now is not only still possible, but actually pretty easy to do.

You can try the following ways on the S4:

• Just long-press the home key to bring up the task switcher and press the “g” icon at the very bottom of the screen.
• You can add an app shortcut or widget on your home screen. The app can be accessed with a single tap and the Now widget will allow you to view predictive cards without opening the app.
• You can also long-press the menu key when on the home screen to go straight into the Google Search bar and view the Now cards below recent search results.

What do you think of S-Voice versus Google Now, which do you prefer?

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Announced at last year’s Google I/O conference, Google Now is now bringing the personal assistant service and predictive search to iOS users. It has arrived as an update to the Google Search app for iOS and is available for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

Google Now’s response via voice recognition is much quicker, compared to Siri. And iOS users will get predictive “cards”, whether you asked for it or not, for stuff such as weather, traffic, navigation and sports scores (you can choose what comes on), and this service depends on the way you use Google services. So it’s like getting an answer before you know you want one.

Unlike the Google Now on Android (4.1 and later), the iOS version requires you to log into your Google account for using Now. It also won’t run in the background, and there will be no notifications. This might not be a perfect version, but it certainly gives iDevice owners a taste of what Google Now has to offer.

To get your hands on Google Now for iOS, head over to the App Store.

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If you’re running Android Jelly Bean on your phone or tablet, you will likely have tried out Google Now. If you haven’t then I strongly suggest you do. I’m currently running Google Now on my phone and I love the fact it can always tell me the shortest route home, the weather for my local area and even tell me if I’m close to the coffee shop I Google’d earlier in the week.

It’s easily my favourite built-in feature of Jelly Bean, and a killer feature for anyone trying to choose between an Android or iOS device right now, but this might not be the case for much longer!

Earlier this week a YouTube video (now removed) appeared showing a very realistic looking advert for Google Now for iOS. Then around the same time Francois Beaufort, a French web developer found pieces of the Google Now puzzle hidden in a development version of Chromium suggesting Windows and Mac OS users could also be getting some Google Now love.

True to form, Google is keeping quiet about both the video and the Chromium leak, but with so much evidence it sure is hard for them to deny.

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Of course, you can get this functionality from Shazam and some other apps. However, if you are running Android 4.1+, the feature is now completely inline with the operating system instead of being a third party app.

All you have to do is touch the mic, say “What’s That Song”, and wait for Google to do its magic. The listening takes all of 15 seconds before Google Now either spits out the song name or cannot find it. Judging by the link to the Play Store and testing some songs, we found out that Google Now will only recognize songs that Google is selling in Google Play.

Overall, Google Now got almost all of my songs correct and in good time. Plus, as mentioned before, the feature does not require a third-party app and has a sleek and simplistic design.

Do you enjoy using Google Now? What cards are your favorite? Let us know in the comments below.

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Yesterday, François Beaufort discovered “Issue 11412291: Creating a skeleton for Google Now for Chrome implementation”. The issue pertains to the structure for showing Google Now cards in Chrome with Chrome Notifications.

In short, Google will be bringing Google Now cards to Chrome with Chrome Notifications soon. Google Now’s card style of displaying information is already somewhat in use in Google Search. More specifically, if you were to Google “new york giants”, you would receive a list of the Giant’s upcoming games as well as their past games.

Making Google Search more personal would be a huge change for Google Search. If Google Now were to break free of its mobile constraints, it would become accessible from anywhere Google is.

Keep an eye out for changes in Google Search. The search giant is constantly improving its website and products in addition to making them faster and faster.

Will you use Google Now when it comes to Google Chrome? Do you even use Google Chrome as your browser? Let us know in the comments below.

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I should be clear, though, that this isn’t really Google Now in the way that you get with Android Jelly Bean. You don’t get those “cards” for the weather and directions for the drive home. Instead, what NowNow does is bring Google Voice Search to the forefront. All you have to do is hold the home button and up will pop the Google Voice Search. That part of the interface really does look like the Android equivalent.

It should be noted that Google Voice Search doesn’t communicate with other iOS apps, so you won’t be able to set appointments or that kind of thing, but you might find the Google searches to be more accurate than what Siri is giving you. You can find NowNow in the BigBoss repository in Cydia and it’s a free download.

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When Apple first introduced SIRI to the iPhone 4S, it was only a matter of time before major competitors followed suite with their own variants. Instead of flat-out copying Siri though, Google Now has done an excellent job at creating a Siri-like experience while maintaining its own unique certain functions and capabilities that help set it apart. Not content to just let things lay, Google is planning on bringing some of that same Google Now functionality to its Google Search application for iOS devices. With the Google Search app you can naturally ask about things like weather and get real results. While the search functions won’t provide full assistant capabilities, they certainly will make using Google Search a lot easier.

According to Google, the app is on its way to iTunes in the next couple of days.

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The new Jellybean variant was put up in a YouTube video by Ricardo Cerqueira, running on an LG Optimus 4X HD. Is it perfect or ready for the hands of wouldbe-modders? Not just yet, it seems that they’ve run into a few snags with Google’s new search system, but considering 4.1 just arrived to a limited public very recently and they are already this far, it’s likely only a matter of time before a reasonably stable version of JellyBean is achieved.
The video of Jellybean running on the Optimus can be seen below.

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So what’s involved in getting Google Now to run on ICS? First, your device must already be rooted for this to work. If you have a rooted system, its just a matter of carefully following these instructions:

1. Open Root Explorer and navigate to /system.
2. Open build.prop in a Text Editor.
3. Edit ro.build.version.sdk=16 and Save.
4. Go to /system/app and rename GoogleQuickSearchBox.apk to GoogleQuickSearchBox.apk1
5. After that, you need to reboot your system.
6. After rebooting, you must download the app. Go ahead and install it.
7. Go back into build.prop and change ro.build.version.sdk = 15
8. Restart one last time and everything should be working.

According to various reports out there on the net, some devices seem to work better with Google Now running on ICS than others. You may experience search issues, voice issues or other bugs that wouldn’t be there with a proper Jelly Bean installation. Just be careful, any time you are modifying files like this in the root, things can go wrong, especially if you throw caution to the wind and don’t properly follow instructions.

Have you tried the hack? If so, what do you think of Google Now on your ICS device?

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