When Thomas picked Nuance’s Dragon Go! as his Android “App of the Week” on Gear Chat last week he didn’t know just how right he was. The app, available for both iOS and Android, just got a notable update that turns the app into a travel assistant thanks to it featuring “travel search powered by Expedia”.
As the company shared,
Dragon Go! app for iOS and Android now lets people truly go anywhere with the ability to speak and quickly find and book flights, hotels, and more with direct access to Expedia. Dragon Go!’s all new travel search capability allows people with iPhones and Android devices to easily find and book the best travel deals available – just by using their voice.
Dragon Go! “combines Nuance’s Dragon voice recognition with natural language understanding” This means the app doesn’t just “understand” the words people use but can use those words to get at what they actually “mean”. And since Dragon Go! works with more than 200 content providers, once it understands what you want, it can automatically open the app you need to take the next step. It really is amazing to see in action.
As Michael Thompson, senior vice president and general manager, Nuance Mobile explained
Old school mobile search is fading. The majority of consumers don’t like blue links, scrolling, or pecking. Consumers want personal mobile assistant capabilities with unfiltered access to content and knowledge. With direct access to services like Expedia, consumers can do just about anything from anywhere – even book a last minute trip with just a few spoken words.
The new integration with Expedia lets people find and book accommodations for a variety of travel needs. For example, you can say:
“Available flights from Boston to San Francisco in March,” to instantly see flight schedules and pricing, and the opportunity to buy tickets directly from Expedia.
“Find 4-star hotels near me,” when traveling and need to book a room at a hotel closest to your current location on Expedia, and swipe over to the Yelp tab for additional feedback.
“What are the best resorts in Cancun?” to see reviews and ratings of the top resorts on Expedia, and see what others have to say with just a quick flick on over to the Twitter tab.
And when on the go, Dragon Go! provides direct access to local restaurant reviews, directions, weather, and more. You can say
“Where can I get the best Italian food in Las Vegas” to get reviews from Yelp as well as book a reservation via OpenTable.
“Find sunglasses near me,” and be taken to Milo.com for a list of local retail shops that sell the shades you want, as well as the ability to purchase sunglasses online.
“What is the weather going to be like in Tahoe today?” to get detailed weather forecasts from Accuweather.com and other top weather services.
“Play ‘Drive By by Train’ to instantly play the song downloaded to your device, or play it from your Pandora station.
Among the many content providers integrated into Dragon Go! are such familiar names as AccuWeather, Ask.com, Bing, Dictionary.com, ESPN, Facebook, Fandango, Last.fm, LiveNation, Milo.com, OpenTable, Pandora internet radio, Rotten Tomatoes, Spotify, Twitter, Wikipedia, Wolfram|Alpha, Yelp, YouTube, Yahoo! and many others – and now Expedia.
Dragon Go! is free in the Apple App Store and in the Android Market in the U.S.