In this article, the author presents the history of human-to-computer interaction based upon the design of sophisticated computerized speech recognition algorithms. Advancements such as the arrival of cloud-based computing and software like Google's Web Speech API allows anyone with an Internet connection and Chrome browser to take advantage of powerful speech synthesis (text-to speech or TTS), and speech recognition (speech-to-text or STT) tools. This article introduces and describes language learning activities that make use of the API to capture speech recognition, speech synthesis, web-based recording, and voice annotations.