Hasta La Gadget!

We’re used to Google’s mobile search apps letting us ask questions as we would with real people, but the desktop has usually been quite stiff. That’s changing today: Google is bringing conversation-like voice search to our computers through Chrome, with no typing required. Web denizens just have to say “okay, Google,” ask their question, and get back a spoken response similar to what they’d hear on their phones. The company hasn’t said just how soon Chrome will incorporate the new voice features, however.

Filed under: Internet, Mobile, Google

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Now that it’s finally got an Android tablet app to speak of, DirecTV is returning its attention to phones: the company announced today that both its iOS and Android applications will be receiving voice search starting this summer. As the company describes it, the app is meant to address the age-old problem of there being “nothing on TV.” (And also, the fact that searching for things on your television is damn tedious.) In particular, you can use the app to search by person, title, channel show time or genre, using commands such as “find comedy movies,” etc. Like other voice-control services, too, you can give follow-up instructions like, “with Bill Hader” and it’ll narrow down your results instead of starting a new search. Considering DirecTV whipped up its own search algorithm from scratch, it seems to work intuitively. Still, the fact that the landing page is filled with sample queries suggests there’s very much a right and wrong way to ask for what you want.

If you’re using the app away from home, you can set your DVR to record different shows. When you’re on your home network, though, you can have the search results show up on your television, at which point your phone transforms into a remote you can use to scroll through menus and the like. With the TV, too, you can wade through various programs, as well as search for sports content or ask the app to switch to a certain channel (saying either the channel name or number will work). You can even tell the app to go back through menus, but you can’t use your voice to access features like the settings menu. No word on when the beta will roll out, except that it’ll happen sometime this summer.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Software, HD

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The many attempts at weaving biometric identification into mobile devices have usually focused on only one aspect at a time, whether it’s fingerprints or voices, and often for access to just the device itself. AOptix isn’t quite so narrowly focused. Its new Stratus system combines an app with a custom iPhone 4 / 4S case (the Stratus MX) to verify faces, irises, fingerprints and voices for grander purposes, whether it’s office workers checking in or entire national ID programs. The bundle should be more portable than most such alternatives, as well as more intuitive through its familiar interface. Odds are that you won’t be buying a Stratus kit to scan friends and family at home, though. Apart from the bundle’s lack of support for the iPhone 5 or any non-iOS platform, the Stratus software in the App Store isn’t an impulse purchase at $199 — and an emphasis on quotation-based case sales likely means you’ll be the scanner’s target, not its owner.

Filed under: Cellphones, Peripherals, Mobile, Apple

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Via: TUAW, Wired

Source: AOptix

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