Here's the first of two promised announcements from Google Mobile's little get-together in San Francisco today: voice actions. In a nutshell, it's a more expansive API similar to iPhone voice control. There are 12 actions in total plus search (so... 13). So far we've seen a couple applications for it: "send message to [person] [message]," or -- if voice calling is more your cup of tea -- "call Millennium Knightsbridge in London" for a location-specific phone call. You can also set alarms, go straight to a website ("go to Wikipedia"), or speak addresses or locations for directions. "Find music" is particularly interesting and works across multiple apps, looking for tunes across the web, too. In this example, "find music by The Decemberists" brought up the option to create a Pandora station. Speaking "Note to self," however cliche, creates a message reminder for you later. Blue words in a spoken message highlight potential errors that you can fix via more standard input mechanisms. It'll come pre-installed on Droid 2 and should be available via the Android Market for 2.2 devices -- just look for "voice search." Video demonstration after the break. And if you haven't been keeping up with the language capabilities, Android now additionally supports Spanish, French, Italian, and Japanese for voice search... but right now actions are English-only. Désolé.
@notsodumb No, no, no it doesn't. But you can imagine what it'd be like if it did. I was wondering how many comments in it would take to hear someone spout that shit. Apple aquired a company recently that specializes in voice command.
@sean4123 yes yes yes it does. This feature is available today and iPhone won't be till when? next year's software refresh at the earliest? Hmmm, yeah. Try again.
@RincewindWiz Just update Voice Search app in the market - that = voice action!
But, when it still doesn't work (and it won't), go to settings, voice input & output, voice recognizer settings, and set (wait for it) Language - English US!
It actually does work even here in blighty!
Of course, you have to pronounce Derby as Durby, but otherwise it works fine!
@FrankJL9 seems like Apple is the only mobile provider that wont have this feature, it isnt talked about much but wp7 has very good voice recognition system. Oh well, Apple will have it on an all new version of iphone you have to pay another 100-650 dollars for.
Why do Americans* always refer to Africa as if it is a country. It's always 'I went to Africa' or 'places like Africa' they always refuse to use the actual country names.
The phrase is denile is not just a river in Egypt which you well know.
*I'm assuming your American apologies if your not.
@fais what so it is OK to to generalize African countries, as long as you are not American? Besides this is the engadget forum, not the 'geographically informed' forum. But since we are correcting folks, it's 'you're', not 'your'.
@fais The Nile is not just a river in Egypt. It's also in Sudan and it's two source tributaries (the White Nile and the Blue Nile) also go through Ethiopia, Uganda, and Congo. That makes it an African river, not an Egyptian river. If you're going to deride people on their geography (even when it comes from a very common statement), it helps to get your facts right.
@Seven2k "And if you haven't been keeping up with the language capabilities, Android now additionally supports Spanish, French, Italian, and Japanese for voice search"
I guess Engadget isn't keeping up on it, it started supporting Korean at the beginning of the summer.
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posted August 12th 2010 1:15PM
There is no live blog?
@mannyengadget
Found one live coverage here http://technologizer.com/googlemobile/
this is really cool, google is changing everything. Again.
Wish my name was Millennium Knightsbridge...
@Wjackson25
Sort of. This should be really useful for the 14 people who have Froyo.
Sigh.
@steel
Engadget, your post says Android 2.0 devices. The link says 2.2 only.
@steel
Damn those 8 people who bought the original Droid, the 5 dudes that bought the Evo 4G, and that one guy who got a Nexus One!
@steel
Quote:
should be available via the Android Market for 2.0 devices -- just look for "voice search."
@beatsandmelody
Ah, Engadget was wrong then. Oh well, no biggie.
I've had 2.2 for a few weeks now. It was available before but not stable. Go Cyanogen.
@steel
Over 250,000 downloads. I can't imagine 14 people buying >250,000 phones, haha.
This feature alone leaves iOS in the dust. Period.
@mannyengadget The better question is....
Where can I get that Android shirt???
@itsizu
Hey, it's just me eating sour grapes since my Incredible still hasn't seen an OTA update to 2.2!
@angermeans
I would so wear that shirt! lol
@mannyengadget Did they fix the scrolling yet?
@Wjackson25 Only for US-English speakers. I guess my English-English isn't good enough ;-) It doesn't appear in the marketplace for me (in the UK) :-(
Google Voice search/actions isn't available everywhere eg. Switzerland
I want to be able to say "Computer" before the actual command, like:
"computer: initiate phone call to commander Data"
@RincewindWiz Same here. An apk link would be nice
@Wjackson25
"this is really cool, google is changing everything. Again."
Sorry, this may be new to you but Tell Me says hi.
http://www.tellme.com/
TellMe is going to be built in to WP7 so this is more of a preemptive strike by google than a revolution.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jY6QfxmMAII
http://www.tellme.com/
@Wjackson25 changing everything in your Google world.. MS Voice has been around for a quite a while...
@steel I know, I have 2.1 and this post got my hopes up, but then I couldn't find it in the Market. They've since corrected the post though.
@notsodumb No, no, no it doesn't. But you can imagine what it'd be like if it did. I was wondering how many comments in it would take to hear someone spout that shit. Apple aquired a company recently that specializes in voice command.
@sean4123 yes yes yes it does. This feature is available today and iPhone won't be till when? next year's software refresh at the earliest? Hmmm, yeah. Try again.
@mannyengadget
Voice: "Self Destruct"
@RincewindWiz Just update Voice Search app in the market - that = voice action!
But, when it still doesn't work (and it won't), go to settings, voice input & output, voice recognizer settings, and set (wait for it) Language - English US!
It actually does work even here in blighty!
Of course, you have to pronounce Derby as Durby, but otherwise it works fine!
Now that we have adequate mobile hardware, there's no good excuse for this to not work pretty well.
@CRA1G Yeah, cause voice recognition is such an easy problem. /s
We need google voice on the king of all phones. THE IPHONE LIEK RIGHT NOW mmmkay goog thanks!
@FrankJL9
Damn..just get a Android phone....denile is not just a river in Africa!
^ like x1000
@FrankJL9 seems like Apple is the only mobile provider that wont have this feature, it isnt talked about much but wp7 has very good voice recognition system. Oh well, Apple will have it on an all new version of iphone you have to pay another 100-650 dollars for.
@Seven2k
Why do Americans* always refer to Africa as if it is a country. It's always 'I went to Africa' or 'places like Africa' they always refuse to use the actual country names.
The phrase is denile is not just a river in Egypt which you well know.
*I'm assuming your American apologies if your not.
@briguy266 iPhone had voice recognition since 3.0, but nowhere near as awesome as this
@fais
Continent is Africa.
@fais what so it is OK to to generalize African countries, as long as you are not American? Besides this is the engadget forum, not the 'geographically informed' forum. But since we are correcting folks, it's 'you're', not 'your'.
@fais Why do Africans always assume we're American... I mean, North American?
@fais The Nile is not just a river in Egypt. It's also in Sudan and it's two source tributaries (the White Nile and the Blue Nile) also go through Ethiopia, Uganda, and Congo. That makes it an African river, not an Egyptian river. If you're going to deride people on their geography (even when it comes from a very common statement), it helps to get your facts right.
@drathos Was just going to point this same thing out.
sounds like the genius button on the mytouch slide
HAHAHA Its a GOOGLE WEEK bitches!!
@Seven2k "And if you haven't been keeping up with the language capabilities, Android now additionally supports Spanish, French, Italian, and Japanese for voice search"
I guess Engadget isn't keeping up on it, it started supporting Korean at the beginning of the summer.
Google Voice Actions? Or Google: Voice Actions?
Thats awesome, take that anti-texting laws!
So, Tmobile's Genius button is coming to all android phones?
@tranceformer978
If you hold the magnifying glass button it does it on any android phone
Back in my day, Google Homing Pigeon was quite advanced.
Call me when it can do "Tea. Earl Grey. Hot."
"Kill all Apple Fanboys"
@Chi You just know something like that is going to happen.
Dude messing around: "Destroy humankind."
Phone: "*chirp noise* Skynet activated."