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Nuance Dragon Notes brings quick, spoken memos and messages to Windows 8
Sometimes, the smallest and simplest apps make the most sense. Take Nuance's new Dragon Notes for Windows 8, for example. Unlike its NaturallySpeaking cousin, it's not a universal tool: instead, it's narrowly focused on the voice dictation of memos, email, social networking updates and web searches. That limited scope leads to a very simple interface, however, and slims down the price from $100 to a far more accessible $20. Fans of minimalism can grab Dragon Notes directly from Nuance on May 15th, although they'll need to spend $10 for every language they speak beyond English.
DirecTV adding voice search to its iOS and Android phone apps, beta coming this summer
Now that it's finally got an Android tablet app to speak of, DirecTV is returning its attention to phones: the company announced today that both its iOS and Android applications will be receiving voice search starting this summer. As the company describes it, the app is meant to address the age-old problem of there being "nothing on TV." (And also, the fact that searching for things on your television is damn tedious.) In particular, you can use the app to search by person, title, channel show time or genre, using commands such as "find comedy movies," etc. Like other voice-control services, too, you can give follow-up instructions like, "with Bill Hader" and it'll narrow down your results instead of starting a new search. Considering DirecTV whipped up its own search algorithm from scratch, it seems to work intuitively. Still, the fact that the landing page is filled with sample queries suggests there's very much a right and wrong way to ask for what you want. If you're using the app away from home, you can set your DVR to record different shows. When you're on your home network, though, you can have the search results show up on your television, at which point your phone transforms into a remote you can use to scroll through menus and the like. With the TV, too, you can wade through various programs, as well as search for sports content or ask the app to switch to a certain channel (saying either the channel name or number will work). You can even tell the app to go back through menus, but you can't use your voice to access features like the settings menu. No word on when the beta will roll out, except that it'll happen sometime this summer.
AOptix Stratus lets iPhone users check ID through eyes, faces, fingers and voices
The many attempts at weaving biometric identification into mobile devices have usually focused on only one aspect at a time, whether it's fingerprints or voices, and often for access to just the device itself. AOptix isn't quite so narrowly focused. Its new Stratus system combines an app with a custom iPhone 4 / 4S case (the Stratus MX) to verify faces, irises, fingerprints and voices for grander purposes, whether it's office workers checking in or entire national ID programs. The bundle should be more portable than most such alternatives, as well as more intuitive through its familiar interface. Odds are that you won't be buying a Stratus kit to scan friends and family at home, though. Apart from the bundle's lack of support for the iPhone 5 or any non-iOS platform, the Stratus software in the App Store isn't an impulse purchase at $199 -- and an emphasis on quotation-based case sales likely means you'll be the scanner's target, not its owner.
AppleScripting Microsoft Outlook > Announce New Emails By Voice
In my last post, I demonstrated how to write an AppleScript that verbally announces when new emails arrive in Mail. Some readers asked whether the same thing could be accomplished with Microsoft Outlook. It certainly can. Here's how... Creating and Installing the Script 1. Launch AppleScript Editor (in /Applications/Utilities) and create a new script document. 2. Enter the following script into the document. NOTE: If you have any trouble following along, you can download the completed script here. NOTE: This script was written and tested with Microsoft Outlook 2011, version 14.3.2, running in OS X 10.8.3, Mountain Lion. You can test the script by running it in AppleScript Editor. Select a message or two in Outlook. Then, return to AppleScript Editor and click Run in the script document's window. 3. Make any adjustments to the properties at the top of the script to customize its behavior. For example, if you don't want the script to raise your volume if it's too low, change the raiseVolumeIfNeeded property value to false. If you don't want the script to read the first few paragraphs of each message to you, set the readFirstParagraphsOfEachMessage property value to false. Modifiable Properties in the Script 4. Save the script in Script format to your Desktop as Outlook > Announce New Emails By Voice.scpt. Saving the script to the Desktop 5. Launch Outlook. From its script menu, choose About This Menu... In the dialog that appears, click Open Folder. This opens the Outlook Script Menu Items folder, which is either in your ~Documents/Microsoft User Data folder or your ~/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Office folder, depending on the version of Office you have installed. The Microsoft Outlook Script Menu Click the Open Folder button to display the Outlook Script Menu Items folder. 6. Move the Outlook > Announce New Emails By Voice.scpt file from your desktop into the Outlook Script Menu Items folder. The Outlook Script Menu Items folder may contain some default scripts provided by Microsoft. Adding an Email Rule Now that you've installed the script, you can run it from the script menu in Outlook. But, you really want a script like this to run automatically when new emails arrive. So, you need to configure a rule to do this. 1. Select Tools > Rules... to display the Rules window. Outlook's Rules window 2. Click the appropriate type of account, i.e. Exchange, IMAP, POP, and click the + button to create a new rule. 3. Name the rule Announce New Emails By Voice and set it to trigger on All Messages. Set the rule's action to Run AppleScript. Click the Script... button and choose your saved script in the Outlook Script Menu Items folder. Click OK to close the rule. The configured rule, set to run your script Now, whenever a new email arrives for the specified type of account, the rule should trigger your script to announce the new messages. If you want to disable the announcements at any time, just go back to the Rules window and de-select the Enabled checkbox next to the rule. Happy scripting! You can disable the announcement script in the Rules window whenever you want
WoW Archivist: Patch 2.2, the patch without content
WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold? New content comes in patches. That's how it has always worked in WoW. Some patches with a multiple decimals, like patch 1.8.2, are just for bug fixes, emergency boss tuning, and the like. They don't really count (although to be fair, some have given us small amounts of new stuff, such as Onyxia's return in patch 3.2.2). A patch with two numbers, like patch 5.2 hitting very soon, is supposed to have shiny new pixels for all of us to enjoy. Patch 2.2, released in September 2007, didn't have any. It was the only time in WoW's history that a major patch did not introduce any new content to the game world. No raids. No dungeons. No battlegrounds or arenas. No daily quests. Not even new items. Instead, patch 2.2 gave us something we didn't particularly want. Something players immediately hated and decried as useless. Something we have never embraced, though most of us haven't thought about it in a long, long time. Most players probably don't even know it exists.
There Came an Echo, voice-controlled strategy starring Wil Wheaton
Iridium Studios, the team responsible for 2011's Kickstarter success, Sequence, is tackling the widely untouched genre of speech-run gaming with There Came an Echo, a voice-controlled strategy game. Iridium hopes to cash in on Kickstarter once again with There Came an Echo, asking for $90,000 to complete the game for PC, with a launch on Steam scheduled for mid-2014 (no Greenlight required).Players in There Came an Echo act as the field commander of a small squad and talk members through operations to achieve various objectives. The game will recognize a pre-programmed vocabulary of a few hundred commands, such as "head to Bravo 3," but each command is fully customizable."For instance, instead of 'Grace, hold position,' you might choose to say 'yo girl, hold up,' or instead of 'weapons free,' you might say, 'not the gumdrop buttons!' You'll be able to direct your troops in a style completely your own," Iridium's Kickstarter description reads.If that's not intriguing enough, Iridium roped in geek extraordinaire Wil Wheaton to star in There Came an Echo. Iridium founder Jason Wishnov has a pretty hefty industry track record himself, including freelance work for Joystiq's Wii Fanboy and DS Fanboy when those were still things back in 2007. Check out Wheaton and Wishnov in the Kickstarter promo video above.
Scream to access all of Dead Space 3's Kinect voice commands
Dead Space 3 doesn't want you to just scream in terror at the screen. With Kinect, Dead Space 3 allows players to say "more than 40 intuitive voice commands," rather than pressing all those pesky buttons. The image below outlines all of the voice commands players will be able to use, separated by interface, gameplay actions, skip and tram locations, and co-op actions.For example, to pull up the inventory the voice command is, "access inventory." To reload, it's "reload weapon," a paired attack escape is "get off me," and to call a partner over for aid it's "help me." Unfortunately there is no action triggered by the "scream like a banshee" voice command.
Facebook for Android update touts speedier photo viewing, ability to send voice messages
While the recently announced Graph Search has taken most Facebook-related headlines of late, let's not forget Zuckerberg himself said that mobile applications are undoubtedly one of the company's main focus areas. And although today's Android update isn't nearly as major as the one from last month, something tells us "likers" and "pokers" alike will still appreciate the new tidbits -- which include an option to share stories to Groups, Pages and Timeline, faster viewing / opening of photos, as well as a feature (relatively known, mind you) that allows for the sending of voice messages to friends straight from the app. Those eager to grab the update now should hit the Google Play link below, where the latest Android treats from the social network giant are only a mere click away.
QNX builds in-car speech framework with AT&T's Watson, knows our true intentions
QNX wants to put an end to in-car voice systems that require an awkward-sounding syntax to get the job done. As part of its CES launches, it's rolling out a framework for its speech recognition technology leaning on AT&T's Watson engine. By offloading the phrase interpretation to AT&T's servers, any infotainment system with the framework inside can focus on deciphering the speaker's intent -- letting drivers spend more time navigating or playing music, instead of remembering the necessary magic words. QNX will roll out the voice element as part of its CAR platform at an unspecified point in 2013. We'll have to wait until car and head-end unit designers implement the platform in tangible hardware, but the new speech system will hopefully lead to more organic-sounding conversations with our cars. Follow all the latest CES 2013 news at our event hub.
Facebook Messenger gets voice features, more coming
Facebook has updated its Messenger app (which allows iOS and Android users to chat with the site's messenging service) with some interesting VoIP features. Users can now save and send voice messages between Facebook accounts, meaning that if you don't want to bother typing a long message out, you can record it as a voice message and send it around to your friends and family as needed. That functionality is in the latest version of the app, which has been updated and is available for free (with a Facebook account, of course) right now. Facebook is also beta testing (only in Canada right now), a live voice-over-IP service, similar to Skype or the other VoIP options out there. That service isn't live in all stores yet, but eventually, Facebook users will be able to call each other over the Messenger app, meaning that you'll be able to not only contact any of your Facebook friends directly, but you can do so without using cell minutes, if you're still limited on those. That should be a fun feature -- there are already a few ways to do that (including the aforementioned Skype app), but having direct access to your Facebook friends list should be useful. Facebook's really figuring out iOS lately -- after a relatively weak start with its own official app (which the company finally sent native later on last year), the company is starting to show that it understands just how important the iOS userbase is. It'll be interesting to see what Zuckerberg's social network does next.
Dragon Mobile Assistant beta for Android updated, lets your voice launch apps and music
Nuance has refreshed its Dragon Mobile Assistant for Android to let you do more stuff using speech alone. The beta app now allows you to set alarms, launch apps and play music, in addition to its existing hands-free prowess that covers making calls, getting directions, updating your Twitter status and waking up your device from slumber using a "Hi Dragon" greeting. The voice-driven personal assistant, which hitherto worked only on ICS and up, also now supports devices running Android 2.3. (And no, you can't customize your phone's nickname. It has to be Dragon, not Snuffy.)
Xbox 360 Dashboard update hands-on (fall 2012)
Is it Fall again already? Must be time for another Xbox 360 Dashboard update. Every year Microsoft Drops the console a little bit of code to match the descending leaves, delivering new features, interface tweaks and additional content to hide behind the Xbox Live Gold paywall. Redmond's latest update isn't quite the overhaul it gave the gaming rig last year, but minor changes can have big effects. Join us after the break to see the machine's latest update, and what it means for you. %Gallery-168426%
Del Toro still shopping 'Insane' concept around, hired GlaDOS for his movie
THQ may have put the kibosh on director Guillermo del Toro's Insane project, but that doesn't mean the idea is dead and gone forever.Del Toro is in the middle of doing press for his upcoming Pacific Rim movie at the New York Comic Con this week, and he mentioned that he's still trying to find a good game company partner for Insane. "Now we are talking to developers," Del Toro said, according to Kotaku. "When something doesn't happen in one way, I just continue pursuing it in another way. I'm not giving up on Insane."Asked for a dream developer to work with, Del Toro said he's a big fan of Valve and the games they make. In fact, one of the robots in Pacific Rim will be played by voice actress Ellen McClain, also known as GlaDOS from Valve's Portal series. "I called the guys at Valve and said, you know how much I am a fan of Portal, can the AI be GlaDOS?" Del Toro said.
YouMail updates, now allows 'numberless messaging'
We covered YouMail back in February of last year -- it's a voicemail replacement app for iOS, which allows you to access and send voicemails completely outside of the standard voicemail interface. If you use voicemail a lot, YouMail features a lot of extra options and ways to handle all of those voicemail messages coming in. The app's recently been updated, and among the new features included is the ability to now send voicemail messages completely within the YouMail app itself, instead of depending on a cell phone network to do so. Again, depending on your plan and your usage patterns, this could be extremely useful. For business users especially, who need to send and receive perhaps dozens of voicemails a day, an app like YouMail can be very helpful, and could even save on cellphone minutes and other charges. YouMail is free to download, and you can sign up for an account within the app. For many users, Apple's built-in visual voicemail is more than enough to handle any messages that appear on iOS, but for voicemail power users, YouMail's latest update makes it an even more helpful service than before.
Review: Dragon Dictate 3 for Mac delivers reliable dictation
I was anxious to test the updated Dragon Dictate, now at version 3, as I had been a steady user of the Dragon products over the years and watched them improve. The new version offers performance boosts for legacy users, along with some attractive new features that might entice customers. Dragon Dictate (formerly MacSpeech Dictate) is a Mac application that turns your spoken words into text, in real time. You can dictate into just about any program that allows text entry, like Pages, Word, Mail or even Safari. You speak commands for formatting, like "new line" or "new paragraph" or "tab key" and your cursor will move. You can also issue more complex commands, like "search Google for NASA." With email you can say "new message" and a message will be prepared. Tab down, by voice command, and fill in a name, subject, then start dictating. Then say "Send Message" and off it goes. You can even say "Send a message to XXX XXXXX" and that works too. As my install was an upgrade from version 2.5, I wondered if my old voice training files would work. They didn't; I had to read about a 10-minute story so Dragon Dictate could learn my voice, and match it to the microphone I use. Although the software comes with a headset mic, I hate wearing them. Instead I use an excellent Blue USB desk mic, which works perfectly, even though I am about eight inches away from it. Dragon claims the speech recognition is faster in v3, and it seems to be, but it's not a dramatic difference. As you dictate, your words appear on screen just a couple of seconds after you say them. One thing that is definitely improved is accuracy. Although I was always impressed with the program's ability to understand words I did not expect it to get right, accuracy has been improved. I'm doing a lot fewer edits of spoken text, although that can be done by voice too. You don't need to use your mouse. This latest version also supports wideband Bluetooth, so if you have a supported wireless headset, you're going to get good quality and recognition that way. The help files are excellent. It's easy to find a command if you get stuck, and there are interactive tutorials as well. One of the newest and most intriguing features of Dragon Dictate 3 is the ability to transcribe an audio file. I was quite skeptical that this would work, so I tried an old MP3 file that was an interview I did for a book I wrote. At the time, I had to pay someone to transcribe all my interviews and it wasn't cheap. It turns out Dragon doesn't want MP3 files, but does support AIFF, MP4 and WAV, so I converted the MP3 file in iTunes to WAV. You select transcription from the Dragon menu and point to the file. The software takes in about 20 seconds of audio and shows you the results. You can confirm the text or make corrections. The transcript was really quite solid, just needing some formatting for paragraphs and fixing a few misinterpreted words. That was very surprising. I recorded the interview with the subject several feet away from my digital recorder. It really is an astounding result, and if I had this software back when I was writing the book it would have saved me hundreds of dollars in transcription fees. Another clever feature is that you can use the free Dragon Recorder app for iOS in the field, then send those files from your iPhone/iPad/iPod touch to your Mac where Dragon Dictate will obligingly transcribe them for you. If you want to use your iPhone as a live mic, the Dragon Microphone app (free) will do that for you. Dragon Dictate 3 is a solid and impressive update. In fact, I used it to dictate this review. It sells for US$174.99, which is an introductory special. If you have Dragon Dictate 2.5 it is a $149.99 upgrade. Current owners have been offered a lower price of $99.00 by email. You'll need an Intel based Mac, with 4 GB of disk space, 2 GB of RAM and an internet connection to register the software. Dragon Dictate comes from Nuance, which seems to pretty much own the speech recognition business. Apple's Siri is based on it, as is the new dictation feature built into Mountain Lion. Of course, those services require an internet connection, and simply don't have the depth of features and power that dedicated software has. If you haven't tried dictation and computer voice control, Dragon Dictate is an excellent, reliable solution. No dictation technology is perfect, and you still will have to make some corrections, but Dragon Dictate 3 is certainly the state of the art. I think the new features and recognition improvements make it a worthwhile upgrade. I've seen scattered reports that version 2.5 does not work too well in Mountain Lion, so upgrading may be mandatory for users in that situation. You can see some of the various functions and set-up screens in the gallery below. %Gallery-167033%
Apple files patent application for 'intelligent automated assistant'
Engadget caught wind of the fact that Apple has filed a patent for an "intelligent automated assistant," which sounds like the nice lady (or man) in your iPhone (or, as of iOS 6, iPad 3) called Siri. The application talks at length about a digital assistant controlled using speech (it's Siri), which takes a user's speech input (again, it's Siri) and then fulfills the speaker's request using digitized speech. In other words, a patent for Siri. Unfortunately, because the patent is so general, there isn't a whole lot of nuts-and-bolts talk about how Siri actually works -- at least none that we didn't know already. But there is some reference to the term "anchor phrases," which are words and phrases that Siri looks for in your speech to actually figure out what you're saying. The patent also talks about providing alternate words to the user in case something can't be understood, and the use of databases (like, say, Wolfram Alpha) for figuring out which information is needed by the user. Apple's all covered, then, should it ever face the question of Siri's origin in court. This patent, plus any others that it may have picked up when Siri was acquired, should be more than enough to defend its case.
Chrome experiment explores new types of navigation, degrees of embarrassment
What you're about to see, should you choose to click the source link below, is far from perfect. On the other hand, it's clearly had a lot of effort and expertise put into it -- not only by HTML5-savvy coders, but also by a troupe of performers from the Cirque du Soleil. It's called Movi.Kanti.Revo, which is a fancy way of saying Move.Sing.Dream, and it involves navigating through an ethereal and slightly laggy landscape using only swaying gestures, your singing voice (mournful sobbing sounds also worked for us) and a bunch of APIs that conveniently fail to work on FireFox, Safari or Internet Explorer. It's well-suited to those with a mic and webcam, preferably sitting in a open-plan and bully-ridden workplace, and if you don't like it there's always Bastion.
Apple confirms iPhone 5 won't do simultaneous voice and LTE data on CDMA networks
If you're still struggling to decide which carrier to use for your iPhone 5, you may have had some of the decision made for you. Following statements by Verizon that hinted simultaneous voice and data still wouldn't be an option despite the inclusion of LTE, which theoretically frees up CDMA for calls, we've confirmed with Apple spokesperson Natalie Harrison that this is indeed the case. It's "not yet possible" to do side-by-side CDMA voice and LTE data on a "single-radio" design like the iPhone 5, she says. That's technically true, although it may be a case of Apple wanting to keep hardware differences to a minimum between CDMA and GSM users. AnandTech founder Anand Lal Shimpi tells the New York Times that Verizon phones like the Galaxy S III, which don't have this limit, follow a different approach: where Apple uses a second antenna to improve overall reception for a single connection, Samsung and other phone makers use theirs to keep both data and voice flowing in harmony. While it's a tradeoff with its own benefits, the choice means that iPhone 5 units for Verizon, Sprint, and every other CDMA carrier still won't let you check your e-mail in mid-call without WiFi. If that's an issue, you'll have to turn to AT&T (or T-Mobile with an unlocked phone) to get your fix.
Google's Voice Search on Android adds support for 13 additional languages
Even though it's also on iOS now, Android is still the first love for Google's Voice Search and the company announced today it's adding support for an additional 13 languages on the platform, bringing the total to 42 languages and accents understood in 46 countries. The list includes Basque, Bulgarian. Catalan, European Portuguese, Finnish, Galician, Hungarian, Icelandic, Norwegian, Romanian, Serbian, Slovak and Swedish. Just like it has since at least 2010 when Voice Actions were introduced it will require Android 2.2 or higher, and is easily accessible either from the search box on your home screen or in the Voice Search app. We should note that it still only understands one language at a time and you may need to change some settings, also the new languages weren't showing up yet on every device we tried -- just some of them. Hit the source link for a few more details on how machine learning was used to extrapolate the pronunciation of all Swedish words based on thousands of samples from native speakers, or just grab a nearby phone or tablet and have Pau Gasol speak some Catalan to it -- although obviously Salvador Dali would be preferred, were he available.
Nuance's 'Nina' vocal assistant SDK may voiceprint users for authentication
Nuance has introduced a brand-new voice interface for smartphones that it's calling Nina -- you can see it in action in a video just posted online. Nina is a mobile OS interface that's open to third-party developers, so it's essentially a Siri that any app developer (willing to read through the documentation and implement the API) can use in their own apps. And it comes with an extra feature: in addition to simply understanding commands and feeding back information, Nina can also use your voice as a passcode, double-checking who you are just from your vocal tones. Nina is an open API, according to Nuance. Developers interested in implementing it can find out more via Nuance's website. Hopefully we consumers will start seeing more of these technologies showing up in apps soon. [via Engadget]