Voice Recognition

Apple, You May Have a Problem. We Have the Solution.

Apple may have a bit of a problem on its hands if a new report from Goldman Sachs (Via www.bgr.com)is accurate. According to a new report, sales of the iPad 2 are slowing even as we come into the holiday shopping season. There are, of course, many possible reasons for this. Among them might be the fact that people are waiting until the holiday season is closer (read Black Friday) to make a purchase and yesterday’s release of the Amazon Kindle fire which is just $199 as opposed to the $499 buy in to get the least expensive iPad. Still,…


Nuance Releases Dragon Express; Just Don’t Call It Dragon for Mac Light

Yesterday Nuance released Dragon Express in the Mac App Store. At an introductory price of $49, the application is a less expensive way to get Nuance’s voice-to-text transcription on your Mac than the $200 Dragon for Mac. (It only runs on OS X Lion and if you haven’t upgraded to it you should.) It would be easy to think of Dragon Express as Dragon for Mac Light and, on one level that is what it is but, after using it yesterday, it strikes me as more of a port of Nuance’s Dragon Dictation iOS app. Just as the iOS app…


Andrea’s SuperBeam Phones On-Ear Headphones Go “Boom-less”

I’ve used a number of Andrea headphones for voice recognition in the past, and I’ve always been impressed. The company’s SuperBeam Phones are a departure from previous models, and I’m really loving the design choices that went into creating them. They are sleek on-ear headphones that drop the microphone boom, but still offer great voice quality. Here’s what the company has to say about them: SuperBeam headsets deliver Hi-Definition sound. Our unique integrated array microphone system is designed for use with Andrea’s patented beam forming and digital noise reduction audio software, providing “The Freedom of Voice”. SuperBeam also provides a new…


Siri and Evernote Sitting in a Tree…

Siri and Evernote work together beautifully, and all it takes is a little bit of preparation. In fact, if you use Evernote regularly, then you probably already have taken the steps you need to take to make it work. You see, each Evernote account comes with an email address that can be used to send notes by email. That’s the key. Here’s what you need to do. First, make Evernote a contact in your address book with your incoming Evernote email address. You can add the email by going into Evernote > Settings > Evernote email address. Launch Siri and say…


“Siri, Find Me T-Shirts Featuring You…”

The other day Mike went on a bit of a tear about Siri, its outage last week and loneliness. This from the guy who sent me information that a t-shirt featuring Siri was on sale at Tanga.com a few weeks ago. (Yes, Mike is a Siri-enabler!!) Seriously? Who is Siri-smitten enough to actually spend money (albeit discounted) on Siri garb? Well, me of course. 🙂 The shirt came today and it is awesome. Yes, Siri is already a cultural phenomena… and it is just the beginning.


More Tips to Make Siri Work for You

The other day I was speaking to someone who had just gotten a new iPhone 4S. They love the phone but were complaining that Siri doesn’t seem to work very well. We spent a few minutes going over some of the Siri ins and outs and, would you believe, he now loves Siri. Because of that, I thought I would circle back and share a few more tips that can make Siri a more effective productivity tool. Talk to Me: As is the case with all voice recognition, you need to speak in a particular manner if you want Siri…


MiCorner: Is Siri Alone Reason Enough to Upgrade to the iPhone 4S?

One of the iPhone-related questions I have been asked my frequently in the last two weeks is this – “I have the iPhone 4. Is Siri reason enough for me to upgrade to the iPhone 4S?” Let me offer a few thoughts and then, hopefully, any of you who have the iPhone 4S will chime in with your opinions. If you have the iPhone 3G or iPhone 3GS, it is a no-brainer. Your contract is up, so now a discounted phone is likely available; the 3G and 3GS — while still excellent phones — are completely outclassed by the iPhone 4S. I…


Siri at Work: Update Yammer on the Fly

The term “game changer” is thrown around far too often. (I am as guilty as the next blogger.) But the fact of the matter is, for those of us who are using Siri seriously, it really is a game changer. In this post I want to take a quick look at one of the many ways that Siri is transforming what I do and making it easier and more efficient than ever. A bit of background first. In my congregation I have the privilege of working with three other members of our clergy team. In addition, I have a full-time…


Enough Fun and Games; Tips and Tricks for Using Siri for Productivity

Siri is a lot of fun to play with, but it is time to get down to business. After all, with a little bit of patience and a few (many?) tweaks, Siri can become an amazingly useful productivity service. Truth be told, for the first few hours I was trying Siri I thought it was a big fat fail. After making some of the changes I want to share with all of you however, I already can’t see having to go without it. So let’s jump right on in. Home Button? You don’t need no stinkin’ Home Button Yes, you…


iOS 5.0 Voice-to-Text Cometh??

As a general rule we don’t cover rumors here on the site. Every now and then however there is a bit of juicy information that is so deeply rooted in fact that taking the leap toward believing the rumor is pretty easy. This is one of those cases and, truth be told, I have a hard time seeing this NOT come to pass. We’ve all been hearing about ongoing negotiations between Apple and Nuance with regard to incorporating Nuance’s voice-to-text technology deeply in the next version of iOS. We’ve even see screen shots of the keyboard trigger for it. Now…


Office Gear Review: Sennheiser OfficeRunner Headset

I spend a lot of time on the phone and have long thought about getting a good headset to use. I was close to buying the OfficeRunner some time back but did not. Why? In part because I read a fairly scathing review of it.The “review” that turned me off to a great extent and prompted me to not purchase the headset talked about the fact that this headset doesn’t work with cordless phones and that the volume that was so low that the person on the other end couldn’t hear the conversation. Both criticisms were, as I discovered, unfair. (I…


An Open Letter to Apple After Microsoft’s Purchase of Skype

Dear Apple, There is big news in the tech sector these days and, one way or another, you are part of all of it. Not a surprise considering the amazing growth you have maintained and the way in which you are shaping the next era of computing. It looks pretty likely that the Nuance deal that has you in a strategic partnership with the voice recognition company is a done deal. Good move! As we wrote last June, Google was eating your bacon in the voice recognition arena and you needed to do something… And fast. Okay, so it took…


Apple & Nuance: A Tale Told on Gear Diary … in June 2010!

If you check the various tech blogs and news feeds today you are likely to find stuff about talks between Apple and Nuance to bring speech recognition to iOS for the iPhone 5. These are all based on a report from TechCrunch and “sources”. In other words, this article is the stuff of rumors… for now. The article recounts Steve Wozniak saying Apple had bought Nuance last November, which was seen as a great idea … but ultimately false and supposedly based on Siri, a company Apple actually DID buy. And yet it goes back even further – because early…


Android Mobile Phone Review: T-Mobile MyTouch 4G

I have wanted to like Android for quite some time. I really did. I kept trying device after device hoping that the next device would be “the one”. Sadly, that never seemed to happen. Even with those devices that I initially liked I found myself growing tired of both the device and the operating system within a relatively short period of time. As a result, the Android handsets I purchased ended up on eBay within a relatively short period, and those that I had received as loaner review units went back without any remorse on my part. Yes, I wanted…


Nuance Gives the New Jawbone ERA Headset a Voice

Nuance, the leaders in voice-to-text and tech-to-speech technology, have brought their powerful Vocalizer Network connected text-to-speech (TTS) functionality to Jawbone’s ERA headset. The new integration brings a unique Caller ID by Name feature via Jawbone’s MyTALK platform by letting users load an address book onto the headset itself. Once this is done, as calls come in, the headset announces the caller’s name in “an incredibly natural sounding voice through a combination of pre-recorded names” As Travis Bogard, Jawbone’s vice president of product management and strategy explains “The Caller ID by Name feature of the Jawbone ERA takes the hands-free experience…


iPhone App Quickie: DropVox Lets You Record Voice Notes and Auto-Save to DropBox

I’m always searching for new ways to use my iPhone to create voice notes and turn them into text. I have found a number of good solutions — primary among them Dragon Dictation. But I’ve always wanted to be able to record a long voice note on the iPhone (Dragon is limited to just 60 seconds at a time) and then 0nce I’m back at my desk, apply the application MacSpeech Scribe to transcribe a long audio recording. The problem I’ve always run into is the fact that many voice note applications don’t record with a quality or a format…


Automotive Technology Déjà Vu

I love new technology when it hits the automotive market, but sometimes I just cannot help wonder if someone else did not think of this first. Two releases I spotted this morning jumped out at me, and I was overcome by a strong sense of déjà vu. First, Ford Motor Company: Ford is aggressively accelerating its commitment to wirelessly connected intelligent vehicles – known as vehicle-to-vehicle communications – becoming the first automaker to build prototype vehicles for demonstrations across the U.S., doubling its intelligent vehicle investment in 2011 and dedicating even more scientists to developing this technology. “Ford believes intelligent…


CES: Nuance’s Technology Is EVERYWHERE! (And That’s a Good Thing)

A while we were at CES last week I had a chance to meet with a number of the people who I email and speak with regularly from Nuance. Nuance is the leading company developing voice to text technology; they’re the company that has given us of Dragon NaturallySpeaking, Dragon Dictation for iOS devices and Dragon for Mac (the application I’m using to write this post). There were a few bits of important news that came out from Nuance over the course of the week. Nuance T9 Trace + Android = Happy Samsung Galaxy Tab User The first day we…


Dial2Do & Plantronics Bring Advanced Hands-Free Voice Control To Your Phone

During last year’s CTIA conference I saw a voice service from a company called Dial2Do.   There have been, and continue to be, a sea of voice applications — ranging from offerings from Vlingo, DriveSafe.ly, to Google’s own Android integration of voice-to-text, voice search, and application control.  So what is special about Dial2Do?   Their service can be used with any bluetooth-enabled phone and does not rely solely on an application running on your mobile phone. Plantronics recently partnered with Dial2Do, branding their joint service as Vocalyst and featuring it on two of their latest bluetooth headsets:  the Plantronics Savor M11o and…


You Wouldn’t Drink and Drive So Why Is Your Smartphone in Your Hand?

The other day I was driving home and was a bit distracted while driving. No, I wasn’t texting. Instead I was trying to look around to see how many of the drivers around me were either speaking, typing or otherwise distracted by using their smartphones. I was amazed, and horrified, to see the percentage of individuals who were doing just that. Then, last night, as I was about to turn off the TV after watching one of the new season premieres I saw an advance blurb for the 11 o’clock news. It said something to the effect of, “Yet another…


Google Voice Actions Adds Yet Another Competitor to the Rapidly Emerging Field of Voice as Interface

Last week Microsoft made a huge deal about the voice control that will be part of WindowsPhone 7. I watched the demo video and wasn’t impressed at all. As I posted last weekend, I am still perplexed as to why Microsoft wouldn’t just turn to Nuance and license their time-proven and excellent technology in order to ensure a level of voice control, and voice-to-text transcription that will work perfectly from the start. Now Google has jumped into the ring as well. Their new Voice Action feature is part of a new version of the Voice Search application for Android phones….