DragonDictation
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New Swype update brings 'four kinds of keyboard', sync-able voice-text dictionaries
If it's one thing Android does right, it's the sheer range of keyboard apps and skins available -- something its competitors haven't quite latched on to just yet. While SwiftKey has charmed us with its latest iteration, Swype's also been in the testing labs and it wants to show you what it's been up to. The new version packs the same next-word prediction from Nuance's XT9 heritage and a new voice-text dictionary sync feature will add new words to both speech and text databases. You can even get the app to crawl around your emails and texts for some extra (familiar) personalization. The latest version can now download over 55 languages, while Nuance has crystallized all of its know-how into a four-in-one keyboard. This includes the typical letter-to-letter swiping that the keyboard cut its teeth on, a more typical predictive text input run through XT9, integrated dictation through a Dragon button and the simple (but slower) fingertip input, where you can trace each individual letter. You can find the beta version of Swype's latest at the source link below. Take it for a test-drive and let us know if it's enough to nudge SwiftKey out of favor. (Update: The beta version hasn't gone live just yet. We're expecting it will launch soon.) (Update 2: And it's live!)
Dragon Drive! lets you take the wheel, while Nuance takes dictation
Do you like your cars smart? Are you itching to drive something a bit more K.I.T.T. than KIA? Well, this summer the glory of your Hasselhoff-soaked, '80s dreams will become reality, thanks to the folks at Nuance. Utilizing the same natural-language voice software currently employed across select mobile phones and TV sets, the outfit's hatched a new platform, dubbed Dragon Drive!, specifically for connected autos. The hands-free tech will support six languages at launch, with more to come throughout the year, giving drivers the ability to dictate texts and emails, as well as manage multimedia and navigation without ever lifting a finger from the wheel. So far, the company hasn't outed any initial partners for the voice recognition service. But if you're in the market for a high-end vehicle and your very own virtual Synergy, rest assured, your needs are going to be met. Hit up the break for the official presser and video tour.
Swype gets a new beta, adopts Dragon Dictation for speech to text (video)
Look, either you love or hate Swype -- there's just no two ways about it. Those that can't imagine life without the gesture-based virtual keyboard will probably only fall deeper in amour with it when greeted with the latest beta. Eagle-eyed observers might notice the microphone key in that image above has been replaced with a tiny flame logo that should be familiar to any fan of Nuance's voice-to-text apps. Swype now has Dragon Dictation baked right in -- a development we could have guessed was coming after the October buy out. Check out the epic video after the break for a few more details.
Nuance adds WP7 support, gives devs better service with NDEV Mobile developer program
You know Nuance right? They're the folks who make Dragon speech recognition software for Macs, iThings, Blackberrys, Androids and cars. Earlier this year, the company released its Dragon Mobile SDK to provide the tools needed to get folks talking to their phones, instead of with them. Now, Nuance has added support for Windows Phone 7 (no Mango support... yet) and upgraded its developer program to provide devs with more support so it's easier to make voice-enabled applications. Additionally, it's added eight new languages to its repertoire -- Canadian French, Americas Spanish, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, Korean, Taiwanese Mandarin, and Cantonese -- with more to come. We got to speak with Nuance about its new program, now called NDEV Mobile, and were told it's broken into three tiers: Silver, Gold, and Emerald. NDEV Silver is the base level that gives devs free access to Nuance's text-to-speech and voice recognition technology. Gold service provides SSL data encryption and access to cloud-based speech recognition and TTS servers over the web (rather than using a client-side API) through per-user or per-transaction pricing models. At the top end, the Emerald level rolls out the red carpet with integrated custom vocabulary and grammar -- for creating apps that recognize industry jargon -- and dedicated account management. The company sees the Emerald tier appealing most to enterprise customers, but it's available to any dev willing to pony up for the extra Nuance TLC. So, intrepid app-makers, now that you've got the tools to make our phones understand us better than ever, how will you use them?
Nuance opens Dragon Mobile SDK to app developers, we see end to embarrassing dictation
There are some messages that are just too embarrassing to dictate to a human being. Lucky for us and the retired circus contortionist we hired to type up our missives, Nuance is expanding the reach of its transcription software by making its Dragon Mobile SDK available to developers for use in iOS and Android applications. The SDK, which is free to members of the Nuance Mobile Developer Program, sports speech-to-text capabilities in eight languages and text-to-speech in 35. There are already apps out there that can do the job, including Nuance's own Dragon Dictation, but we welcome new advances in automated transcription. You know, it's not exactly a walk in the park dictating an entire Clay Aiken Fan Club newsletter to a guy named Sid the Human Pretzel.
Hey Canada! Dragon Dictation and Dragon Search now in your app store
This will please many of our neighbors to the north. Nuance, the creator of Dragon Dictation [U.S. iTunes link] and Dragon Search [U.S. iTunes link] for the iPhone and iPod touch say the U.S. version of the apps is now available in the Canadian iTunes store. These versions support U.S. English and will use U.S. English spellings ("center" vs. "centre", "color" vs. "colour", etc.). Canadian users will want to verify that their iPhone or iPod Touch's Region Format is set to Canada (see Dragon Search FAQ -> General) to search Canada specific content. Nuance wants our readers to know that they are working on new dialects and new versions for other countries, and they hope to have some further announcements soon. The Dragon apps are free, and have become quite a hit with users who can dictate email or text messages using the dictation app. Your words are sent to the Nuance servers where they are returned as text in a couple of seconds. The search app lets you search Google, Bing, Twitter, YouTube, iTunes and Wikipedia by simply telling the app what you want.
Nuance outs free Dragon Dictation for iPhone
Talking on your phone is one thing, but talking at your phone makes you look like a crazy person. Of course, virtually everyone on the Engadget masthead is crazy in one sense of the word or another, so we have absolutely no qualms about the release of Nuance's Dragon Dictation for the iPhone, which uses the company's NaturallySpeaking engine to let you transcribe pretty much whatever you like. Of course, seeing how the iPhone lacks multitasking, it uses the clipboard as an intermediary -- talk into the Dragon app, then move over to wherever you want the good and paste 'em. It's free for a limited time, so you might want to grab this one sooner rather than later.
Dragon Dictation comes to the iPhone. Wow.
Put this into the 'I didn't think they could ever get this to work on an iPhone' category. I'm talking about Dragon Dictation [iTunes link] from Nuance, the developers of the very popular Dragon Naturally Speaking for the PC. Nuance also provides the speech recognition engine for MacSpeech Dictate on the Mac platform. To dictate on the iPhone you just launch the app, press the record button, and start talking. Your dictation can be a brief sentence, or a much longer treatise. Once the text has been created from your speech, it's possible to email it, send it as a text message, or put the result in your clipboard. After recording your message, you can edit the resulting text before you send it off for others to read. It's pretty slick! When you record your message, it is quickly transmitted to Nuance servers where a speech recognition algorithm is run against your data. The resulting text is returned to your iPhone very quickly; my informal benchmarks showed that it took about a second for text to be processed on a Wi-Fi network, and less than 5 seconds over 3G. You'll need a data connection for the app to work, but having this speech-to-text capability is going to be very important to a lot of people, who will find all sorts of uses for it. I tested the app for about a week and found the accuracy to be very good. Accuracy diminishes if you are in a very noisy environment, as I found when I tried some dictation while being driven down the interstate. There were a few errors, but they were easy to correct. To add punctuation to your text, you can say 'period', 'question mark', or 'new paragraph,' and Dragon Dictation adds the appropriate punctuation.
