Speakables for TV - free voice control for Mac-based PVRs

By Laurie A. Duncan

As much as I love my TiVo, I've always lamented the fact that when I talk to it, it doesn't respond. Instead, I have to push buttons on its peanut-shaped remote to get it to change channels, view the TV listings guide and play all of my recorded programs. Archaic, right?

Enter Speakables with the first "off the shelf" software made specifically to control a Mac-based PVR (personal video recorder) with nothing but your voice.

Speakables for TV was developed by a team of speech recognition experts, including a key developer of Apple's Speech Recognition. It currently works with EvolutionTV, AlchemyTV and MyTV.PVR, in conjunction with Mac OS X's Speakable Items. To encourage more rapid adoption of computer-based PVRs, Speakables has released Speakables for TV as a free download for Mac OS X 10.2 or higher.

I don't currently use any of the Mac-based PVRs because I enjoy lounging on the couch (aka the Veg Zone) to watch TV and I have no desire to connect my Macs to my television, but I will admit that I find the idea of being able to turn on Seinfeld just by screaming "Serenity now!" quite appealing!

And if you think that's fun, check out Speakables
for iTunes for a mere $10 and get ready for Speakables
for iPhoto, which is do out soon.
 

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