I spent a half hour speed-dialing Google's new phone directory service, 800-GOOG-411. The verdict? Google's speech-recognition and geo-mapping algorithms outperformed Verizon and AT&T's humans this afternoon. GOOG-411 figured out that "Dover-Foxcroft" was a town in Maine rather than bouncing me to an operator. It deduced that "H H Brown Shoes" meant a store in nearby Dexter. It let me talk with my mouth full. But the service makes an irritatingly un-Googly first impression on callers.

GOOG-411 answers not with a hello, but with a forboding, "Calls recorded for quality." It then adds audio injury to insult by playing a randomly-selected voice actor enthusiastically shouting "GOOG-411!" The very first time I called, my right eardrum was nearly punctured by some bratty boy-child's shriek.

The service's designers seem overly smitten with their archive of voice snippets, which cover a wide range of ages and international accents. Perhaps they meant to draw a human smiley-face on Google's robotic server banks. More like several thousand smiley faces. While the system searches for your listing it sputters a barrage of chopped-up syllables, as if the machines were trying to learn to speak. One of my calls was answered with a cacophony of myriad tongues pronouncing "Roto-Rooter" and other business names. After several seconds during which I wondered if I'd been misconnected to a party line, an announcer broke in over the chatter:

800-GOOG-411. We're a little swamped right now, but just call back, and we'll try to help you out.

The verdict: Fail. At least until I can interrupt the redundant intro blurbs by immediately speaking a city and business name. Those seconds count, especially while driving.

GOOG-411's speech recognition and directory search may be smarter than Sprint's, but its prerecorded human voice talent makes me want to kill. If I'm driving home from Modesto at 5 a.m. and need to find a Starbucks using only my BlackBerry and one hand, the last thing I want to hear is a bunch of politically correct voices telling me what I already know. For that, I've got NPR.

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