Google Chrome is the most voice-enabled browser in the free world, as the company propelling it continues to weave voice throughout its core applications via Chrome.

The search engine Aug. 25 switched on the ability to let users speak search queries into their computer microphone to look for places and get directions for Google Maps.

The move comes two months after Google launched Google Voice Search for the desktop via Chrome, and works the same way as that tool.

That's because it leverages the exact same speech recognition and application model used for the Google Voice Search for Android smartphones and tablets.

Users simply click the microphone icon in Google Maps, speak their location or direction queries and wait for the results.

This tool leverages Google's massive speech recognition database, which recognizes more than 1 billion words. Even with that word bank, Google is only about 60 percent accurate for voice search queries. I tried an easy one first, "New Haven, Connecticut":

Worked for Tijuana, Mexico, too:

Think of this as similar to the Google Maps Navigation turn-by-turn direction software for Android smartphones, only without the turn-by-turn directions.

The idea is that users begin to use their voices and speech to execute search commands, freeing their hands from extra typing, ostensibly saving time.

Search products such as Google.com, Google Maps and the like are natural starting points for this tool, but you should expect Google to layer voice across all its Web services and apps where it makes sense.

Imagine being able to upload videos to YouTube, and even manage documents in Google Docs, or sort email messages in Gmail with your voice. Wouldn't that be something?

C.K. Sample III, vice president of product development for Crowd Fusion, which makes a Web-based publishing platform hosted entirely in the cloud, brought up an interesting point in the wake of Apple's iPad 2 unveiling March 2.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs claimed that the iPad 2 was the company's third, post-PC blockbuster:

Our competitors are looking at this like it's the next PC market. That is not the right approach to this. These are post-PC devices that need to be easier to use than a PC, more intuitive. The hardware and software need to intertwine more than they do on a PC.

Few would argue Apple didn't nail the tablet form factor, software and application ecosystem. Sample's gripe is that these post-PC products still rely heavily on the PC for actibations and software updates, backing up data and document transfer and syncing:

As much as they are these highly functional, magical devices that you can carry anywhere and do nearly anything with, at the end of the day, they all need to be connected to a fully functional PC.

I recently received a lightning bolt e-mail response to my eWEEK story from April 4, in which I explored the idea that Google could create some search application specifically to shield its App Store applications for the iPhone and iPad from Google's search index.

One anonymous reader wrote July 24:

"I work at apple, all I can say is YOU HAVE NO IDEA!!!! IT WILL BE AWESOME!!!"

Emphasis is the writer's own. This could just be some prank pulled by someone who wants to fan the flames of competition between Google and Apple, whose jousts for the mobile Web have become bucket-of-popcorn-worthy events.

Or it could be someone in the know, who, upon pain of death, can't reveal his or her identity because of the iron curtain of Apple secrecy.

Google could unveil its much-discussed, little verified Google TV, or at least the Android-based software the company is building at Google I/O in May, sources told Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal (paywall warning).

As I wrote in March, Google TV -- we don't have an official name for the software/service -- is a platform and service that will run Web applications through set-top boxes and onto televisions.

The set-top box is allegedly fueled by Android and Intel's chips, and will make Sony televisions and even Blu-ray DVD players function like computers, running Google's search, Chrome Web browser, YouTube and other programs.

Expect Google to foster third-party apps on Google TV, or whatever it will be called, much the same way developers write apps for Android smartphones. Imagine the fragmentation for Google TV apps!

Bloomberg claimed April 28 that Intel is contributing a special Atom chip that will run a new version of Google's Android operating system called Dragonpoint.

The Journal said Google could delay discussing the software until the technology matures, though that certainly didn't stop Google from launching Google Wave at the same developer event last year.

A couple things about this idea are compelling. First, it represents another leg on the Android stool.

Second, Google is trying to succeed where Apple TV and other services bombed. Imagine if Google TV succeeds in the wake of Apple TV.

That will open up a whole new front in the mobile Web war between Google and Apple. Keep an eye out -- I'll be watching this development closely.

Fresh pictures of Google's Chrome Operating System running on a tablet computer are dominating high-tech talk today. Here's a glimpse:

People are anxious to see what Chrome OS can do. Sundar Pichai, vice president of product management at Google, said Chrome OS is slated to appear on netbooks first in the November-December 2010 timeframe.

There's already talk of an integrated media player running in the Chrome Web browser and OS.

Technologies that do in the browser what Microsoft has done with an on-premise download look attractive to a lot of people these days. Call it cloud envy.

Here is what one can do on a Chrome OS tablet:

So let's step back and consider the early, early airing of a Chrome OS user interface, on the Chromium developer Web site here by Google Chrome User Interface Lead Glen Larson.