Apple iOS 5 beta hints Nuance voice recog for iPhone 5
"Goodnight computer, wake me in the morning. And could you print out traffic directions and reports for the route to Nebraska for 7am?"
We're still kicking the tires on OS X Lion, but already there's fresh speculation on voice recognition. Apple [AAPL] is the world's most valuable technology company. Unlike other giant tech firms it continue to experiment in new directions, new markets and technologies. And the next big deal in iOS 5.0 will be voice control, more details of which are emerging this weekend.
[This story is from Computerworld's Apple Holic blog. Follow on Twitter or subscribe via RSS to make sure you don't miss a beat.]
Nuance's delicate Apple connection
Previous claims Apple and Nuance are growing closer together may be correct. Eagle-eyed NDA-breakers at 9to5Mac have identified links to dictation features within the OS.
It is possible this is just by way of additional support to Nuance's existing solutions. For example, Nuance's Dragon Dictation app allows iPhone users to speak emails and text messages. It works with the iPhone clipboard, allowing users to speak naturally and easily paste it into other apps, including Facebook and Twitter.
Nuance recently told me that its servers store an analysis of each voice using its apps (anonymized, of course) and puts this analysis into its central database -- in other words, the voice recognition technology will become increasingly accurate and sophisticated as it is used more extensively.
Earlier this month Nuance introduced Dragon Go! via the App Store. Not yet available outside the US (localization apparently) this is a great app.
I recently noted an increased focus on Apple's platforms within Nuance. Simply speak a query, and the app automatically determines and then delivers the best content destination from 180 providers, including AccuWeather, Bing, ESPN, Facebook, Fandango, iTunes, Last.fm, LiveNation, Milo.com, OpenTable, Pandora internet radio, Rotten Tomatoes, Twitter, Wikipedia, Yelp, YouTube, Yahoo! and many others.
How this works (from the company press release):
-- Say "The best Mexican food near me," and instantly be taken to the Yelp tab for local reviews, or flip over to the Phone tab to quickly call to find out about any specials on the menu that evening.
-- Say "Reservations for two at Capital Grille in Boston," to be taken directly to OpenTable to book a table for dinner, or scroll over to the Maps tab to find out how to get there from where you are now.-- Say "Cowboys & Aliens near me" to instantly buy tickets, read fan reviews and see trailers on Fandango, and then scroll over to Twitter to see what other people are saying about the movie.
--Say "Nikon cameras" and you can move to the Milo.com tab to see the best local prices from nearby brick-and-mortar stores, or opt to see the product in action through video demos on YouTube.
It's getting serious
Apple acquired Siri in early 2010. Now it is thought Apple will combine its Siri technology with that of Nuance to create a voice recognizing personal search solution for the iPhone. As with Nuance's model, you'll be able to share your spoken queries anonymously with Apple in order to improve the efficiency of these systems.
To figure out how these technologies might be made available, you need to ask yourself: "What would Steve do?"
So there we have it, voice control seems set to become ever more important across Apple's platforms. For an idea of what it could do for us, please read this.
Source - [ blogs.computerworld ]
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