Google using Audio text in description

[L]

I searched
best knife brand
on Google today.

The first result is an NPR story:

NPR : Slate's Shopping: The Best Knives for Carving
Slate's Shopping: The Best Knives for Carving. Listen to this story... ... Then Henckels, which is the well-known knife brand, has a lower-end line called ...
www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5024876 - Similar pages

That text, "Then Henckels, which is the well-known knife brand, has a lower-end line called" is pulled from the audio itself.

Is this new? Did I miss the story on this?

[Marshall Clark]

I don't think this is audio indexing. I remember something a while back about Google working with public radio to help index text transcripts of their audio broadcasts using a trusted feed/IP delivery type system - here's the link:
http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/article.php/3360681

BTW, there are actaully groups out there that are doing text indexing of audio content. Podscope is a good one - they use voice recognition software to build an XML text transcript and then index this to deliver search results. Here's a good test search there:
http://www.podscope.com/search.php?s=d&q=monkey+pox&sourceID=0

[Chris Boggs]

for more possible clues see the following sessions covered during SES Chicago 2005... http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/002902.html and http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/002899.html

[L]

Ah - I knew about speech recog. progress, but audio snippets in Google descriptions was new to me. Missed Danny's article on NPR/Google relationship.

Would def. be good to see implemented for everyone (in reg search? Or in video/podcast search only?). I did find it pleasantly surprising to find an audio take on the subject I was looking for in reg. search... i wouldn't have thought to do a video or podcast search on something like what knives to buy...