Google's latest idea could end up offending a lot of people

Google has patented a new voice search system that serves up different results based on the accent of the person searching.

If someone searches for "movie" in a French accent, the newly patented system suggests returning specifically French results - "La Mer" and "French Movie" as well as, for some reason, "Horror Movie".

As Google explains it, "For example, if English-language speakers with a French-language accent show a preference for a particular result for the query terms "restaurants in Scranton" than do English-language speakers with a Russian-language accent, a search engine will be more likely to select that particular result for another user who provides a voice query in the English language with a French-language accent. The preference for that particular search result would not be reflected in search results that are generated for other users that do not have that particular accent."

While the granting of a patent does not mean the system will ever see the light of day, we are ready to be offended by the results/spend hours tricking it and offending our friends with our flawless international accents.

• What to expect from Google IO

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