Boy, this is interesting:
The reason we really did it is because we need to build a great speech-to-text model ... that we can use for all kinds of different things, including video search.
Google developed Goog 411 to train their speech to text technology. Via Waxy who remarked it is a neat idea but seems kinda inefficient...I dunno, seems like a super smart way to get access to a huge set of data to work with, and if it results in a way superior technology then the ramifications would be huge.
Tell us what you think...