Thursday, August 19, 2010

Google voice actions for Android

Android has gone from 4% market share to 34% in a year. Holy cow. Battle of the titans, RIM, iPhone, and Android.

Now, I'm not too optimistic for myself since I have not had too much joy with voice recognition, possibly due to my sexy accent, but still I have to say that this Voice Actions thing looks highly promising.

(I am wondering why they have a 14-year-old kid demo this in the video? Or am I getting older?)

Update: some people are expecting the Windows Phone 7 to become big based on games.  As to what reasons this writer has for actually rooting for Microsoft, I have no idea, perhaps he has stock.
"It's good to see Windows Phone 7 finally incorporating some Microsoft-exclusive features that could come into play when consumers go to the shelves."
-

5 comments:

Ray said...

Voice Actions:-

The latest Opera browser has a similar feature, with which you can talk to it to have it do things.

It can also read back some documents,
if it is set for it, and if the documents have the proper encoding.

http://www.opera.com/

Anonymous said...

"Android have gone from 4% market..."

Should read: Android HAS gone...

It's a bitch when you don't know the language, huh?

If you write a blog, you should be able to communicate in that particular language flawlessly. Even the 'dotheads' have full command of the English language.

Being from a God forsaken country is no excuse for 'effing up' the English language. Either learn it, or GTFO.

Yeah, you're a publisher. When you flush, it's published, right?

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Ah yes, thanks for your kind correction.

Philocalist said...

Ahhh :-)
Don't you just LOVE it when some pretentious prat unsuccessfully attempts to occupy the intellectual high ground, then fails miserably? :-)
No wonder you wish to remain Anonymous ... I would too under these circumstances!
Whilst to a degree I concur with some of the sentiments you express, YOU appear to have problems of your own with the English language!
Pot, kettle, black etc.:-)
According to that veritable tome, the Oxford English Dictionary, regarded as the definitive record of the English language, the word 'dotheads' does not even exist (I've certainly never come across it, even in casual use!), and 'God forsaken' is actually a single word, without a capital letter!
I DO hope there is more to your life than lurking anonymously online and making a fool of yourself!

Pascal [P-04referent] said...

Voice recognition should logically include a calibration option for the user's own accent. Even more so if it works the way I think it does: by converting the sound into cooked syllabubs, I mean coded syllables, then matching these with the words it's programmed to identify.
Heck, I've got gaming technology right here at home, 5 years old, that does as good! My Playstation2 has a camera for some specially designed games where you can "be" inside the screen and play with your body. What this now-obsolete console can do with this:
- Detect any movement. That's the basic function, along with embedding your image.
- Self-calibrate previously to the game by asking you to stand inside an on-screen silhouette, so that a moving shadow on the wall, or your mom opening the door at the fringe of the camera's field to yell "DINNER!" will not be improperly mistaken for you trying to do some action.
- Detect a certain color for a game where you play a knight with a foam "sword".
- In that same game, detect if you're off-screen or ducking, in a level where you "ride your horse" in a forest filled with low branches. Jolly good fun.
- Be calibrated, via key points you place yourself with a tutorial, to integrate images of your filmed face and profile into a virtual 3-D head, which will then change expressions, open its mouth, blink, etc... There are many games where that head is then used. (Yes, I've spotted the obvious pun!)
So, calibrating the voice recognition for a user's personal pronounciation? TODAY? Should be as simple as having him/her read out loud a small list of specific words. Exactly like "modern technology" used in every dictionary for the pronounciation guide!
Devices could even have a simple option to switch between "custom" and "standard" calibration, in case they send you a Californian engineer to fix your hi-tech gadget.
How come it worked in Star Trek? Is it REALLY that impossibly futuristic?
Or maybe it's genuine science-fiction to hope real-world companies would show some basic sense BEFORE their stereotyped ways cost them a fortune. :-P

"If you write a blog, you should be able to communicate in that particular language flawlessly."
Oh, so you obviously haven't checked the OTHER 99% of blogs that are out there, with CATASTROPHIC language skeelz, LOL!!!!111!! PWNED! fAIL, hahaha. U R no l33t, loosr,,,

"Being from a God forsaken country is no excuse for 'effing up' the English language."
Hunh? "God forsaken country"? Are there any OTHER Lebanese out here that I didn't know of?
Surely, after the Cartoons Affair, everybody knows that Denmark has only been forsaken by Allah and Muhammad.
:-P

"Pot, kettle, black etc."
Philocalist,
No need for name-calling!
Ooooh, riiiiight... Sorry. Forget I said anything.
;-)
My proverbs are a little rusty under the soot.

"I DO hope there is more to your life than lurking anonymously online and making a fool of yourself!"
More? Yeah, sure, but... is it more FUN? ;-)

It takes all (bad) tastes to make a world.

No, you stupid machine! I never said "Gurgle false auctions for Andrew void"!!!

P.S.: I haven't found "effing up" un any dictionary, either. What the fuck is that word supposed to mean?