Google's Conversational Search Feature Goes Live; ‘Star Trek’-Style Hotword-Triggered Search Unveiled At I/O Conference Around The Corner [VIDEO]

Google Chrome's conversational search feature, first unveiled at the I/O developer conference last week, went live this morning with the updated 'Chrome 27' version of the web browser.

Google previewed plans for its software services at the I/O developer conference, and the Google Chrome conversational search feature is the first of the software updates to be released.

The conversational search feature allows users to speak their search queries out loud. The search engine will pick up the users' speech and return the results of the speech out-loud and in list form.

To start a 'conversation,' users click the microphone in the search box, and speak a question, to which Google will respond.

PC Mag reporter Adario Strange tested the feature with the question, "Who is Steve Jobs?"

Chrome responded with the correct answer, "According to Wikipedia..." going into a description of the late Apple CEO.

Strange reported that the conversational feature worked well. After being asked, "Who is Justin Bieber?" the machine responded correctly, and after he replied, "When is his next show?" Chrome delivered a list of tour dates from Ticketmaster.

The most useful part of the new search feature is Chrome's awareness of context. If users use a pronoun, it automatically assumes they are referencing the previously searched term.

At I/O, Google demonstrated a hands free, voice-activated conversational search feature, which is not yet live. The advanced search feature would allow users to say, "Ok Google, search for..." getting results without clicking a single button.

Currently, users wishing to use the conversational search feature have to click the microphone icon in the search box.

PC Mag noted that since the 'hotword' feature is already integrated into Google Glass, it should appear in Google's conversational search soon.

The update to Google Chrome also shortened page load speeds by 5 percent, according to an official Google Chrome blog post.

"A 5 percent 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," said James Simonsen, Software Engineer for Google Chrome.

Check out the video of Google's introduction of conversational search at the I/O Developers' conference here: