VoiceControl
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Ford SYNC owners to get stock quotes, horoscopes and movie listings shouted at them
Hooray for voice command systems... that no one uses. Okay, so maybe someone uses 'em, but until voice recognition software improves drastically and / or our own memory banks swell dramatically, we still see most motorists reaching for buttons, toggles and wheels when it comes time to interact with their vehicle. That said, existing Ford owners with SYNC'd rides can soon do a lot more talking with their system thanks to a few complimentary updates hitting the Traffic, Directions & Information (TDI) sector. The cloud-based service will allow drivers to demand that a given stock quote, horoscope, movie time or travel inquiry be sorted and shouted, and just in case you glossed that last sentence over, we're going to reiterate once more that your SYNC system will now read back your horoscope. And guess what? These updates should be taking effect immediately, so feel free to make a mad dash for your garage and try 'er out.
Ask TUAW: iPad VGA out, changing keyboard shortcuts, Time Capsule worries, and more
Welcome back to Ask TUAW, our weekly troubleshooting Q&A column. This week we've got questions about changing keyboard shortcuts in Keynote, the iPad's dock to VGA adapter, Time Capsule failures, Mac-compatible scanners, iPhone voice control, and more. As always, your suggestions and questions are welcome. Leave your questions for next week in the comments section at the end of this post. When asking a question, please include which machine you're using and what version of Mac OS X is installed on it (we'll assume you're running Snow Leopard on an Intel Mac if you don't specify), or if it's an iPhone-related question, which iPhone version and OS version you have.
TUAW Poll: What features would you like to see in the Apple tablet?
Being an Apple blogger must do something strange to your brain, because instead of having "visions of sugarplums" dancing in my head on Christmas morning, I was thinking about what cool features an Apple tablet could feature. While we've heard of some of the proposed ideas -- it's supposed to be a good ebook reader, for example -- I thought of a few more things I'd like my first-generation iTablet / iSlate / iPad / iWhateverIt'sCalled to do or have: A camera built into the display side of the device for iChat videoconferencing or streaming services Allow "multi-multitouch" so you can have several people playing a game on the display surface, all interacting at once Something like Autograph built-in to allow digital signing of documents A built-in suite of touch apps to allow limited editing and full viewing of Word / Excel / PowerPoint / Keynote / Numbers / Pages documents At least one display port for connecting to an HDTV or monitor Access to both the Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble Nook digital book libraries through iTunes Voice control of app launching to avoid skimming through page after page of app icons Dock for using the tablet with a keyboard and/or setting it up as media center (replace the Apple TV) Which one of these features would be on your short list for an Apple tablet? Vote in our poll below, and if you have any great ideas that weren't listed here, please leave them in the comments. %Poll-39200%
Microsoft messes with 'natural' user interface, featuring eye tracking, voice control and wild body gestures
While today's Windows might not look completely out of place next to a Windows of yore, Microsoft Research certainly has some wild ideas for how to progress computer interaction. In a talk during Microsoft's college tour, Craig Mundle has been touting his research wares, including some pretty reasonable advances like auto completion of common concepts; automatic, intelligent sorting of large amounts of data; and a movable, modular work surface. One of the odder demos involves moving the LCD so it's flat on the desk and then using huge arm movements to manipulate a 3D model projected onto a piece of glass, and the demonstration of eye-tracking is intriguing while not altogether convincing. Of course, we've got a while before we'll see any of this stuff in real products, but perhaps we won't have to wait so long as ten years for that "2019" vision of the future to come to pass. Hit up the read link for the videos.
Video: BudsGoBlue teaser hints at iPhone 3GS-controlling BT headphones
Itching to command your iPhone 3GS via voice control, yet aren't willing to wrap one more cable around your precious dome? Your wildest dreams could possibly come true next month, when BudsGoBlue launches an iPhone-friendly set of Bluetooth earbuds that should act as headphones and a BT headset. We're hearing that the loops on each earpiece are "completely flexible," and judging by the teaser video hosted up just after the break, they look fairly seductive, too. Hop on down and have a peek for yourself, won't you?[Via mobilitysite, thanks Toni]
2010 BMWs boast improved Nuance voice control system
BMWs aren't exactly lacking for technology these days, but it looks like the new 2010 models come packing a little something extra to make your life even easier. As Nuance Communications is all too happy to announce itself, the new vehicles boast an improved voice control system from the company that promises to allow for a "more conversational dialogue between drivers and BMW navigation and entertainment systems." That, naturally, gets paired with BMW's own iDrive system, and includes some Sync-like abilities to search for music by voice, as well as a new "One-Shot Destination Entry" feature to let folks enter a destination address in one simple voice command. It can even apparently recognize several different language in parallel, letting a French-speaking driver, for instance, search for a German song title or English album title.
iPhone 101: Safe driving with iPhone
Let's face it, the less distractions you have while driving the better, even if the government can't decide whether or not to tell you how dangerous phones + cars can be. Last week I was happy to see Penn Jillette (a magician whose work I've admired since I was too young to say the name of his current show) on Twitter proudly announce he was going to quit calling and texting in the car. Bravo!Penn happens to sport an iPhone, and like any modern cell phone, it has "airplane mode." I'm going to show you how to set the iPhone to this "no call" mode, and explain why you probably don't have to while driving. Plus, if you absolutely must talk while driving I'll explain a helpful trick with the 3GS. You should never under any circumstances try to type while driving -- pull over, already.To turn off your iPhone's cell radio, thus preventing distracting text messages, push messages and phone calls, go to Settings > Airplane Mode and turn the switch ON. Pretty easy, yes, I know. But unless you are going to use the iPhone's audio in your car (and there's like a zillion apps for that), you could just as easily turn off the ringer. The switch above the volume buttons on the left of the screen controls the mute for external sounds. When you arrive at your destination, check your phone for missed calls, etc.If you have a 3GS, you can use the Apple headphones that came with it to activate Voice Control, giving you a relatively safe method of interacting with your iPhone while driving (except for a proper, Bluetooth speaker/mic or in-car solution, I guess). Plug in the headphones and put the headphone directly connected to the microphone in your ear. Press and hold the "middle" button (in-between the volume buttons) for about 3 seconds, until you hear the beeps. Voice Control is now on! You can control the iPod functions and make calls, but I recommend you try Voice Control before you start driving. Note that there are voice dialing apps for previous iPhones, but I feel having to see the screen to push even one button is an unacceptable distraction.The New York Times and many other news outlets have reported on the unreleased government study showing that even talking on the phone increased the likelihood of having an accident -- whether you are hands-free calling or not. Driving and chatting with a disembodied voice can be distracting, apparently. So, again, the only truly safe thing to do is to switch off your cell radio entirely (Airplane mode). This won't allow you to play streaming radio stations, but it may save your life. Otherwise, use your willpower to ignore the chimes, rings and buzzes, and if you absolutely must talk or text, pull over.
Vlingo adds voice control to older iPhones
Pity the poor iPhone 3G owner who now has to grapple with reality; yes, what was until Friday the world's coolest smartphone is now simply a piece of yesterday's tech, as current as a punchcard and as enduring as a wax cylinder recording on a hot afternoon. No, not really -- the iPhone 3G is just as cool as it was a week ago, and for $99 it's a relative bargain. Still, there's some envy on the wind. Some of our readers have apparently been so dazzled by Apple's enthusiastic promotion of the new iPhone 3G S that they were fooled into believing that the hardware-linked features of the 3G S (the compass and the voice controls, specifically) would be made available on the 3G with the delivery of the 3.0 software update. They have written to us, irate and frustrated, wanting to know what happened to their promised features. We sympathize, and we want to help. There is, as it happens, a way to get one of the marquee features of the 3G S -- voice control -- onto your iPhone 3G or original iPhone. The vlingo app, available free in the App Store since December of last year and also available for Blackberry & Windows Mobile, gives you voice command dialing from your address book, map search, Yahoo web searches, Twitter/Facebook updating, and more. The recognition quality is quite good; it's worked as well as Google Voice Search for me in most cases. Vlingo is quite a bit slower to recognize audio on the 3G than the built-in Voice Control is on the 3G S (unsurprisingly, considering the horsepower boost on the new phone); it also does not allow iTunes control, while Apple's tool does. Despite these drawbacks, it's fun to use and very slick. Update: As Eitan points out in the comments, vlingo's speed is not necessarily limited by the local processing power, since it depends on the remote server for audio analysis. One of the major points of contention regarding vlingo, and a cause of many negative reviews on the App Store, is that the app does have to do something a little bit touchy in order to enable voice dialing: it asks if it can upload your contact names to vlingo. While this is a necessary step if you want to use voice dialing, and while the company says it does not include phone numbers with that upload nor does it use the information for any purpose other than creating spoken profiles to recognize the names of your contacts when you speak them, there are plenty of users who aren't comfortable with this step. If you're not OK with it, you can still use vlingo without the voice dialing feature; at that point, however, it's not dramatically better than Google's Voice Search. You can watch a video demo of vlingo in the 2nd half of this post. If you've got other workarounds or third-party apps that help 3G owners level up with their happy 3G S comrades, please let us know.
AITALK adapter adds voice control to your iPod nano
Voice control accessories for the iPod aren't an entirely new invention, but they've often been more expensive than the iPods themselves. While it's still far from a bargain, this new $85 AITALK adapter for the iPod nano on display at Computex does seem to be one of the more affordable to date, and seemingly just as full-featured as the rest of the options out there. That includes the ability to speak artist and song names in addition to the usual player controls, and support for multiple languages (although it's not clear exactly which ones). Unfortunately, there's no word on a release 'round here just yet, but you can get a closer look at the device courtesy of our pals at Engadget Chinese by hitting up the read link below.
ASUS promises voice-controlled Eee products by end of the year
For a company that gets so much (deserved) guff for endless, boring product iterations, ASUS also manages to sneak in a good amount of crazy functionality -- some of it more gimmicky than others. ASUS has been doing multitouch trackpads since before they were hip, is toying with dual touchscreens and is even crazy enough to build the Fold / Unfold computer. Next up for the firm is voice control, with a whole team dedicated to voice recognition, and plans to ship Eee PC and Eee Top products by Q3 or Q4 of this year. According to ASUS CEO Jerry Shen they're working with third parties in this effort, so we're guessing they're not going to reinvent the voice recognition wheel. Still, it's a promising development for a line of computers that seem to suffer most when it comes to input methods -- we'll wait and see how well they pull it off.
Nuance launches Nuance Voice Control 2.0, hello feature phones
We've had opportunity in the past to play with some of Nuance's voice control software -- in an alpha state -- on a Windows Mobile handset and to say we were blown away is an understatement. Things like voice dictation for messaging and handset control were loaded with wow factor, but sadly, it fizzled away, or at least appeared to. Nuance launched Nuance Voice Control 2.0 today, and this package is headed to feature phones -- in some 20 languages -- via carriers and OEMs as a value add for customers. With NVC 2.0 your set will offer voice activated dialing, by just saying a name, voice activated web search, SMS and mail dictation, music search, and just about anything else that a service operator wants to add. Sure, we've all tried various speech to text engines, but this one -- at least the version we tried -- is truly something that we'd dive to pick up, if the integration is done well. We're going to get together with Nuance at Mobile World Congress next week to get some proper hands-on time, but until then, check the video of it in action after the break.
Moshi's IVR Alarm Clock accepts voice commands, harbors own primary directives
The Moshi IVR (Interactive Voice Responsive) Alarm Clock is a chatty one. Instead of those perfectly reasonable physical buttons which have been providing us with additional five minute segments of sleep since time immemorial, the Moshi IVR wants to talk you through your morning. To activate a command, just say "Hello Moshi." Moshi will most likely mutter something threatening under its virtual breath, and then ask you "Command Please," to which you can instruct the clock to tell you the time, set the alarm, inform you of the temperature and a bunch of other things. Sounds great, and we doubt Moshi will be able to murder you in your sleep without any life support systems or pod bay doors under its dominion, but we still fear the prospect of attempting to reason with a too-smart-for-its-own-good alarm clock during one of those dreaded "before noon" hours of the day. Moshi IVR is available now for $50.
DirectVoxx muso voice control accessory is more expensive than the iPod
We can't deny the usefulness of a voice controlled iPod at the gym, while running or snowboarding, or when overcome by the fits of extreme sloth more akin to our eXistenZ. Hell, Apple has recognized the importance of hands- and eyes-free text to audio translation and audio navigation in a number of patent applications. But seriously DirectVoxx, the price of the accessory can't cost more than the device it accessorizes. Meet the $159 muso, a voice recognition dongle for the iPod nano (which starts at $149). Muso requires zero initial setup and training yet is said to understand natural language commands like, "play me some Led Zeppelin," or "gimme jazz." While a muso voice control application from Apple's App Store seems like a given, DirectVoxx says that, "the iPhone does not allow programs to access the iPod portion of the iPhone." Shame. The muso is iPod- and English-only for now and expected to ship in December. See it in action after the break. Otherwise check the $100 voice control solution from Accenda expected in September. Update: DirectVoxx responded to our concern with the price. While they won't be offering any discounts they've at least offered an explanation which we've posted in whole after the break.Read -- DirectVoxx muso Read -- Accenda
3rd-party app brings voice dialing and control to iPhone
Hands full and need to call Ma or Pa? Many handsets have you covered for emergency hands-free with voice dialing, and while iPhone isn't one of them, thankfully Makayama is here to save the day. Voice Dial for iPhone delivers everything you'd expect from a voice dial app -- like, ah, voice dialing -- by using voice tags assigned to people in your phonebook. As an added something, it also offers voice prompts to start programs on your handset, so starting the browser ca be as simple as saying "browser". To get this gem you're going to have to have a jailbroken iPhone and be willing to shell out $27.95 for the joy.
BlueAnt unveils voice-controlled V1 Bluetooth headset
Anyone who's used the stylish, compact, voice-isolating Z9 Bluetooth headset from BlueAnt knows that while the unit itself performs satisfactorily, remembering the thousand-and-one unintuitive button combinations (three-second push to end a call?) can be a real pain in the ass. Well thankfully for fans of that somewhat flawed product, the Australian manufacturer will be back as CES with yet another dual-mic model, the V1, which drops the Z9's awkward input method in favor of almost complete voice control. The so-called BlueGenie Voice User Interface promises to operate the full suite of headset functions with the use of but a single activation button, which -- if it can actually work in real-world situations -- should definitely help give this new model a leg (or six -- ha) up on the competition. Stay tuned to our CES coverage for more details, along with pricing and release info.
