Tag Archives: voice

Indigo Is An Android & WP8 Voice Assistant Capable Of Casual Conversation

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It is no secret that Windows Phone does not have as many alternatives to Siri as Android, and even the personal assistants that are available in the WP Store have their shortcomings. Speaktoit Assistant is good for having a fun chat every once in a while and has a very customizable UI, but you can’t get it to perform a plethora of useful tasks. Ask Ziggy, on the other hand, has often been accused of being a little too simplistic. So it is nice to see a new talking personal assistant that has been released at the same time for both Android and WP8. Indigo is a voice-controlled personal assistant that can entertain you while having the basic purpose of making your life easier. Read More

Use Native WP8 Voice Commands To Get Directions To Any Location

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The fact that Microsoft hasn’t given Windows Phone’s voice control feature a proper name in WP8 (it used to be TellMe until Mango) might have contributed towards it remaining a bit underrated. The fact remains though that WP8 supports some decent voice commands, letting you launch apps, perform searches, and even control some internal aspects of a few apps (like creating reminders). Having said that, some recent releases in the WP Store have demonstrated that there is even more to voice controls in WP8 than you might imagine. We all know that Windows Phone’s integration with HERE Maps, and Nokia Drive makes it a good platform of choice for people who rely on their smartphones for driving or walking directions. With the newly released Go To app, the WP8 navigation experience might just feel complete. The app lets you use WP8’s native voice commands to get driving, walking or public transit directions for any place you want. Read More

How To Get Voice Dictation In iOS Keyboard On Older Devices

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The topic of Siri being limited to only a few iOS devices has been discussed ad nauseam. Now that it is quite clear that the older iPhone and iPod touch devices are never going to get Apple’s talking assistant, users can only concentrate on finding good apps and tweaks that replicate Siri’s functionality as accurately as possible. While there are already plenty of good Siri alternatives available for iOS, most of them focus on bringing a conversational personal assistant to your device while overlooking one important feature - the voice dictation button that is available in the keyboard of all Siri-enabled devices. Even the tweaks that port Siri to legacy phones usually leave the keyboard untouched. Having said that, voice dictation is as useful as Siri itself, and it is nice to see that a tweak has finally brought this feature to all jailbroken iDevices. Sara Dictation Keyboard adds the small microphone icon to the stock iOS keyboard, letting you dictate to your device in a number of languages. Read More

Facebook Messenger For iOS & Android Gets Voice Messaging & VoIP Calls

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In the past few months, Mark Zuckerberg and his team have been working quite hard to beef up the Facebook Messenger app for Android and iOS with some handy features. What started as a rather simple, standalone mobile messaging app for avid Facebookers now qualifies as a handy SMS replacement that doesn’t even require a Facebook account to get configured. So far, the app’s content sharing capabilities revolved around text messages, images, emojis and locations. The latest update brings the added functionality of voice messaging to both Android and iOS variants; instant 1-minute audio messages that can be shared as part of a conversation. A Viber and Vonage-like VoIP calling service is also reported to be under experimentation for iOS users in Canada. The free internet calling facility is expected to be announced for other parts of the world soon. Read More

Translate 25+ Languages In Text & Voice On iOS With Voice Translator

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Anyone who has ever read Douglas Adams' ‘A Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy’ is sure to have marvelled at the amazing ‘Babel Fish’. For those of you who don’t know, Babel was portrayed as an instrument that could translate any language to any other, merely by listening to it. While Voice Translator for iOS does not support languages of the entire galaxy, it comes pretty close. The app is capable of translating about 25 languages in voice input mode and if you are willing to enter text manually, it can translate between about 60 languages and dialects. To make the whole thing even more useful, Voice Translator speaks out the translated snippet to give you an accurate idea of each word’s pronunciation and usage. You can also share the translated text via email or SMS. Read More

Android App Of Social Voice Messaging Service VoiceBo Hits Play Store

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VoiceBo is a cross-platform social voice message sharing service for web, Windows, Mac, iOS and Android that lets users privately as well as publicly share brief recorded audio clips with others. While the iOS client of the service has been around for quite some time now, the Android app has just made its way into the Play Store. Besides sharing Hallo-like short but high quality voice clips (known as Bos), the app supports sharing content under various tags/categories, and lets you supplement your audio bits with relevant images as well as your current location. Therefore, you can share almost anything that requires some sort of oral description, such as explanation of the picture being shared, a personal message to your loved one, your opinion on a common topic of interest, or anything similar. Each voice message can be recorded for a maximum of five minutes, and can be shared publicly, privately or directly with a specific contact. As with any social app, there are plenty of tools available at users’ disposal to interact with the shared content and spread the best content further with your mates. Read More

List Of Google Now Commands & Smart Cards

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For the recently concluded Google I/O 2012, big G had quite a few tricks up its sleeve, and, rather unsurprisingly, most of the announcements made at the event were based around Google’s fast-flourishing mobile OS, Android. In terms of hardware, the Android community relished the arrival of the 7-inch Tegra 3-supported Nexus 7 tablet, whereas on the firmware front, it was the latest iteration of Android, Jelly Bean, that snatched the limelight. Besides all other new features and performance tweaks, Android 4.1 Jelly Bean brought with it a much improved, smarter and informative search assistant in the form of Google Now. Initially exclusive to only the aforementioned Nexus 7 tablet and a handful of other Android devices rocking Jelly Bean, a fully functional - yet unofficial - build of Google Now can now be installed on almost any rooted device running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (and above). The specialty of Google Now lies in its knowledge-packed Smart Cards. Based on your location, calendar events, search queries and personal preferences, these cards automatically keep appearing at regular intervals throughout the day, keeping you apprised of whatever information you need to have at hand at that particular instance. Although using the Google Now feature is no rocket science, there are a few phrases, query formats and voice commands that can help you maximize use of its Smart Cards. To reveal the list of all such useful commands, continue reading past the break. Read More