Though nearly impossible to get through right now, this is quite cool: Google is in the early stages of testing a voice-based search system. After phoning up the number, and speaking a search query, the results reportedly appear a Web browser after you click the relevant link. Laying aside the model’s apparent paradox, it could lead to some interesting applications (such as a cellphone-based search service).

Update: just got through. A perky voice says: “Say your search query.” Nothing happens unless the query is understood, in which case the same voice says, “Okay, searching” and then “Your results are ready.”

Pretty good results that require you to speak a bit slower than normal. A search for “wallet” failed (kept getting results for “olech”) until I appended it with “money”.

Sound-alike words trip it up (including an ego search with my—admittedly obscure—last name which returned “craig” and “selah”), as do initialisms like “css” and “xml”.

This is all part of the experiments unveiled at Google Labs which a playground for the company’s developers. Although Google’s search engine brought it to fame, this kind of openness and willingness to publicly experiment will have a larger impact over time.