Chrome OS gets ‘always on’ voice control

Google is going to build voice control into Chrome OS, which can be activated with the command ‘ok Google’. Chrome OS thus follows in the footsteps of Android, where this function has been available for some time. For now, voice control is available in an early version of the OS.

On the social network Google+, Google developer François Beaufort explained how the new voice control in Chrome OS works. As long as the screen of a Chromebook is on and unlocked, the command ‘ok Google’ can be used to activate the voice control. Users can find their voice command history at the url https://history.google.com/history/audio.

Voice control is still in development, but can already be turned on by installing a dev version of Chrome OS and enabling the flag chrome://flags/#enable-hotword-hardware and then choosing voice control in the settings. The system must first be trained by saying ‘ok Google’ three times so that the user’s voice is recognized. When voice control will come to the final version of Chrome OS is still unknown.

The operation of the new functionality is similar to what is already built into the Android operating system. There, the voice control can also be activated by saying ‘ok Google’. Just like on Chrome OS, speech detection is always on.