The new features being introduced by the HTML5 standard are simply astounding. Just as the awe of one feature starts to wear off, I discover another that is even more awesome than the last. The current jaw dropping discovery is largely due to the Speech Input API Specification. Thats right, speech input.

You can add speech input to any input element by simply using the x-webkit-speech attribute.

The following code

<input type="text" x-webkit-speech />

Will yield this

You can do other exciting actions language translations, or the famous voice search for android:

    <script type="text/javascript">
      function startSearch(event) {
        event.target.form.submit();
      }
    </script>

    <form action="http://www.google.com/search">
    <input type="search" name="q" speech required onspeechchange="startSearch">
    </form>

Although this currently only works in Chrome 11 and relies on Google’s voice API, it is anticipated that more browsers will adopt the technology, and users will have the ability to choose which voice API they want to use.

*does the happy dance*

chrome html5 JavaScript speech input