Google is to start selling a voice-activated search application for the iPhone. The application, which is available in Apple's App Store, lets the user speak their search term and have the voice converted into text and searched by Google's engine.

The application will also use the iPhone's GPS capabilities to enable local searches, if the call is made in a space where the GPS satellites can be contacted.

Google is somewhat late to the voice-activated search market, as Microsoft has had a system out since last year and Yahoo added the application in April.

The company is not releasing any data on the accuracy of its searches, however. Voice recognition is still bedevilled with false positives due to variations in human speech patterns and the double meaning of many words.