Google updated its Chrome Web browser on Wednesday to include conversational voice search, which the company demonstrated last week at the I/O conference in San Francisco, which allows users to speak naturally to your computer to get search results.
Google says the updated Chrome loads Web pages 5 percent faster than the last version, according to a blog post by Google software engineer James Simonsen.
"A 5% improvement may not seem like much by itself, but our estimates show that when you add up those saved seconds across all Chrome users, it totals to more than 510 years of people's time saved every week," he wrote in a blog post.
Conversational search also remembers context, so users can follow up on the previous query with a new question. For example, one may ask, "how old is Meryl Streep?" Then ask, "Who is she married to?" Google remembered that the user has searched for Meryl Streep, so it knew who "she" was.
To access the new conversational search feature, visit Google.com and click the microphone. It will ask for permission to use the connected device, and then a user can simply say what they are looking for, or ask a question, and it will provide the answer as it would if one were to type in a query.
The new Chrome will also be able to reload web pages more quickly thanks to its new, more efficient caching method for use when the network is slow. The final tweak being implemented by Google is the ability for other iOS apps to open links in Chrome, then return to the original app just a single tap.
Chrome for Android also received some new features, including full-screen support, improved omnibox behavior and client-side certificate support, among other additions.
Watch a demo of the new improved search at Google I/O 2013:
