Thursday, August 9, 2012

Software : New voice-control for Google Search iOS app mimics Siri

Software : New voice-control for Google Search iOS app mimics Siri

New voice-control for Google Search iOS app mimics Siri

Posted:

New voice-control for Google Search iOS app mimics Siri

A new version of the Google Search app for iPad and iPhone will allow users to make voice requests and commands, much like Apple's Siri app.

The soon-to-be released update, which mirrors the voice search functionality in Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, will respond to various questions by opening the relevant content within Google Search.

You'll get a voice response, like Siri, and a written response too.

Users can ask 'what's the weather like tomorrow?' or 'when is Ben Affleck's birthday?' or 'what's the square route of 2,637?' and get a fast response.

You can even give commands, like 'Play the theme tune from The A-Team' and a YouTube clip will open and start playing. Very Siri-esque.

Understanding our intent

In a blog post entitled 'Building the search engine of the future' Google says it wants to 'understand our intent.'

"Often the most natural way to ask a question is by asking aloud. So we've combined our speech recognition expertise, understanding of language and the Knowledge Graph so that Voice Search can better interpret your questions and sometimes speak the answers back as full sentences.

"This has been available on Android for a few weeks and people love it. It'll soon be available on your iPhone or iPad (iOS version 4.2+)."

That 'soon' is likely to be in the next couple of days, Google says.

iPhone 5 to be 7.6mm thin?

Posted:

iPhone 5 to be 7.6mm thin?

Tired of tugging the iPhone 4S out of your back pocket? Apple apparently thinks the current iPhones have too much girth and, according to rumors leaking out of China, it plans to slim things down for the sixth-generation.

The news comes from an "in-person report" via Chinese newspaper Apple Daily, which claims the iPhone 5 will sport a 7.6mm body.

That number shaves 1.7mm off the iPhone 4S' 9.3mm body, but still wouldn't qualify the iPhone 5 as the thinnest phone on the market.

The title of slimmest smartphones would still belong to Motorola's Droid Razr (7.1mm at its thinnest point) and the ZTE Athena (a slender 6.2mm).

Earlier rumors pointed to the iPhone 5 making use of a super-thin screen, a feat possible thanks to in-cell technology, to slim down its depth.

There's no mention in the Chinese report just how Apple plans to make the iPhone 5 thinner, but the evidence is certainly mounting when it comes to a skinnier redesign of Apple's smartphone.

Taller and thinner?

Tuesday, rumors of the iPhone 5's bigger screen came closer to fruition when it was discovered iOS 6 was scalable to a higher resolution of 640x1136.

That resolution works out to the next iPhone coming with a 4-inch screen, which would make its screen height much more comparable to Samsung's Galaxy S3 (4.8-inch) and the HTC One X's (4.7-inch) screens.

However, if the iPhone 5 does come with a 7.6mm body, it would be thinner than both of those phones by at least 1mm.

Until Apple officially releases any information about the purported iPhone 5, we'll just have to keep monitoring the rumors and reports, and hoping this taller, thinner iPhone becomes a reality.

Windows Phone Marketplace becomes Windows Phone Store

Posted:

Windows Phone Marketplace becomes Windows Phone Store

There's a lot of name changing going on at Microsoft lately. After it got Metro-sensitive last week, the company has now switched the moniker for its mobile app store too.

WMPowerUser reports that users will now buy their apps from the Windows Phone Store, not the Windows Phone Marketplace.

The rebranding effort coincides with the new download portal for Windows 8 desktop and tablet operating system, which is also called the Windows 8 Store.

While the change will co-ordinate the two stores ahead of the Windows Phone 8 launch, it's not surprising Microsoft has ditched the Marketplace.

The term always seemed a little clunky and doesn't exactly have success connotations for the company.

No go Metro

The move comes just a week after Microsoft decided to drop the term 'Metro' as a name for its new touch-friendly Windows 8 UI, in favour of the less cool "Windows 8-style UI"

Redwood had been reportedly threatened with a lawsuit from a German retail giant Metro AG, who were understandably miffed that Microsoft had encroached on its trademarked name.
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)