Hasta La Gadget!

If you didn’t get enough mobile news during the week, not to worry, because we’ve opened the firehose for the truly hardcore. This past week, Virgin introduced a WiFi calling service in the UK, a new smartphone leaked for Cricket and RIM announced a free app giveaway for Canadian residents. These stories and more await after the break. So buy the ticket and take the ride as we explore the “best of the rest” for this week of November 5th, 2012.

Continue reading Mobile Miscellany: week of November 5th, 2012

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Software, Mobile

Mobile Miscellany: week of November 5th, 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 10 Nov 2012 21:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you find that Siri on your iPhone isn’t as helpful as you imagined, all hope is not lost. If you’re jailbroken, it turns out you can install a quick tweak called NowNow that will replace Siri with Google‘s Voice Search. So, whenever you hold down the home button, Google Voice Search will pop up instead of Siri.

Google’s Search app has long been available on iOS, but they recently just added Voice Search, meaning that iOS users could take of advantage of Google Search in a Siri-like environment. However, users couldn’t make it their default voice search service, so holding down on the home button would still bring up Siri, while users would still have to open up the Google Search app to use that voice search option.

However, if your iOS device is jailbroken, you can install a tweak from Cydia called NowNow that completely replaces Siri with Google Voice Search. However, there are a couple of caveats. Google Voice Search doesn’t integrate with Apple’s built-in iOS app, so you won’t be able to set alarms, leave reminders, or call someone using Google’s option.

Then again, Google Voice Search has proven to be a lot faster than Siri at finding out stuff, so if speed is important to you, this little tweak may be just what you need. It’s absolutely free, so you have nothing to lose but a little bit of time. The tweak is available in the Cydia store via the BigBoss repository.

[via AppAdvice]

NowNow replaces Siri with Google Voice Search is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

It’s time for a new kind of app for the smart universe, on that focuses on the child in you – or your child, of course – and brings your toys to life with augmented reality: it’s ToyTalk! The three folks behind this project were all formerly at Pixar in different positions – Martin Reddy was a lead Software Engineer, Oren Jacob was CTO, and Bobby Podesta was a supervising animator, and with their combined expertise, we’re about to see speaking toy enter the smart space. The whole project is set to launch at the start of 2013, but just today they’ve released their first cinematic trailer.

Martin Reddy is currently the CTO of ToyTalk and was also (in addition to working at Pixar) part of the team building geospatial visualization technology at the Artificial Intelligence Center at SRI International. SRI is the group that created Siri, the personal assistant software that currently lives in the iPhone and the iPad. This team also has Renee Adams, currently ToyTalk’s head of operations – Adams worked for several years at Apple working on logistics and retail operations. ToyTalk’s “Senior Speech Scientist” is Brian Langner, Carnegie Mellon PhD.

Though that’s not the entire team they’re working with, you can start to form a picture of the final product: artificial intelligence for kids. And not just that – applied to the toys that the kids own and play with on the daily. Have a peek at the trailer they’ve created to see what they’ve been cooking in the lab.

Sound like a strange enough situation to be excellent to you? We’ll be finding out more on this app – and the ecosystem that surrounds it – sooner than later! Stick with SlashGear to see the whole situation unfold as it unfolds – it’s going to be a good time!

Former Pixar and Siri developers join up for ToyTalk to make Teddy speak is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Google voice search is really handy: don’t just take my word for it, go to Google.com on your computer and try it out. Sure, on the computer, it feels silly, but on a mobile device it will fit right in. Google just updated its Google Search app for iOS to include smart voice searching and bring that functionality to the iPhone (it had already been available on Android for a while.) The voice search uses Google’s Knowledge Graph technology to parse commands given in natural speech accurately and efficiently. For instance, a question like “what does the Brooklyn Bridge look like” will point to an image search, kind of like the same query fed to Siri. In the past, Apple has removed apps from the App Store because they “duplicate existing functionality,” but I don’t think they can pull that one on Google.

It’s available for free from the Apple App Store.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Siri dishes out prostitute advice in China no longer, Apple reportedly hires Amazon’s search exec William Stasior to work on Siri,

Nuance has taken on Google Now and Samsung’s S Voice with Dragon Mobile Assistant, a new Android app that attempts to bring Siri-style artificial intelligence to Google’s smartphone platform. A free release, Dragon Mobile Assistant allows users to make calls and text messages, set up calendar events or Facebook/Twitter updates, get navigation help, and more, all using their voice and natural spoken commands.

There’s also the ability to check the weather from a location simply by asking for it, to look up local businesses and landmarks, and to find places to eat and make reservations there. Dragon Mobile Assistant can also use the same website search tools as in Dragon Go!, querying information across more then 200 sites.

A “Driver Mode” adds complete hands-off control to the app; you can wake it by saying “Hi Dragon” and have voice prompts to guide you through the different levels of functionality. Text-to-speech also reads out incoming messages.

You’ll need an Android 4.0 device or above to use Dragon Mobile Assistant, and currently the app is only available in the US. Nuance says it will be broadening availability and adding functionality before the end of 2012.

Nuance Dragon Mobile Assistant brings Siri to Android is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.