Hasta La Gadget!

Voice recognition. Or, more specifically, speech recognition. It’s one of those technological wonders that we all seem to take for granted, while simultaneously throwing laughter its way for not being nearly sophisticated enough. Anyone that’s used an early generation Ford SYNC system — or pretty much any vehicular voice command system — knows exactly what we’re getting at. While processing speeds and user interfaces have made great strides in the past handful of years, voice recognition has managed to continually disappoint. It’s not that things aren’t improving, it’s just that they aren’t improving at the same rate as the hardware and software surrounding them. Even today, most new automobiles have to be spoken to loudly, pointedly and directly, and even then it’s a crapshoot as to whether or not your command will be recognized and acted upon.

For as much as we complain, we totally get it. Teaching a computer program how to recognize, understand and act upon the movement of human vocal chords is a Herculean task. Throw in nearly unlimited amounts of dialect and regional variation with even a single language, and it’s a wonder that programs such as Nuance’s Dragon Dictate even exist. Teaching a vehicle how to route calls, adjust volume and tweak a radio station is one thing, but having a program that turns actual speech into presentable documents requires a heightened level of accuracy. The newest build of Dragon Dictate for Mac (v2.5) allows users to seamlessly combine dictation with mouse and keyboard input in Microsoft Word 2011; it also gives yappers the ability to more finely control how Dragon formats text such as dates, times, numbers and addresses, while a free iOS app turns your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch into a wireless microphone. We recently pushed our preconceived notions about this stuff aside in order to spend a solid week relying on our voice instead of our fingertips — read on to see how it turned on.

Continue reading Nuance Dragon Dictate 2.5 for Mac review

Nuance Dragon Dictate 2.5 for Mac review originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 Sep 2011 16:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Today sees the release of Parallels 7, the newest version of its popular, competition beating virtualization software. This edition plays nicely with Lion, runs multiple virtual machines and has received several performance tweaks — for the number obsessed, you’ll enjoy knowing that it resumes Windows 60 percent faster than Parallels 6. Gamers will notice a 40 percent bump in 3D graphics rendering and video-chatters will find that Windows can now access your Mac while it’s being dictated by OS X. Low end users who don’t have Windows 7, fear not — you can use the “Windows on Demand” service to buy a license via an “easy-to-use wizard” like, erm — Clippy. Mobile fans will also see Parallels’ iOS app give you remote access to your home machine, but be quick — the price is leaping skyward from $4.99 to $19.99 soon. You can grab the standalone edition for $80, but folks already using versions 5 or 6 can level-up for $50.

Continue reading Parallels Desktop 7 plays nice with Lions and cameras and developers, oh my!

Parallels Desktop 7 plays nice with Lions and cameras and developers, oh my! originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 01 Sep 2011 11:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink TUAW  |  Parallels  | Email this | Comments

After a legendary run as the CEO of Apple, Steve Jobs has resigned from the position. He will be staying close to the company’s product development and will be the Chairman of the Board of Directors, but Jobs’ day-to-day involvement in the company will be scaled back as Tim Cook takes the reins. In honor […]

Sweet jumping jehosaphat, the patent suit madness just won’t end. Only a month after the ITC sided with Apple and HTC offered a standard-issue plea for cooperation, the Taiwanese company has filed its own infringement complaint against the Cupertino crew. This isn’t the first suit brought by HTC against Apple, and we’re sure it won’t be the last. In fact, the two have a long history of engaging in the most common form of competition for smartphone makers. (Why let your products do the talking when you have high-priced lawyers on retainer?) The three patents at the heart of the complaint cover not just the iPhone and iPad, but also the company’s computer line — in particular WiFi networking features and the combination of PDA and cellphone functionality. You can check out the patents in question at the more coverage links and you’ll find PR right after the break.

Continue reading HTC drags on the patent war, files yet another complaint against Apple

HTC drags on the patent war, files yet another complaint against Apple originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Aug 2011 17:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Finally, people without the internet can update to OS X Lion

If you have a Mac, are nerdy enough to want to actually update its operating system and yet somehow don’t have any access to the internet, then you can now buy OS X Lion on a thumb drive.

The latest Lion-based MacBook Airs ship without any form of recovery media at all, although they will let you connect to the internet and download Lion even if your hard drive is hosed. You can also download the free Lion Recovery Disk Assistant and make your own bootable repair drive. Neither of these will actually let you install Lion without Internet access, though, unlike this new thumb drive.

It’ll cost you $70, but then you probably don’t even know that the same software can be downloaded for just $30 and burned to one of the thumb drives you already own, because you don’t have an Internet connection. Which also means that you’re not reading this post. Which means I can say whatever I want to you and you won’t even know. Moron.

OS X Lion USB Thumb Drive [Apple]

See Also:

• OS X 10.7 Lion Ditches the Disk, Offers Cloud-Only Recovery …
• Mac OS X Lion
• Apple Launches Lion Recovery Disk Assistant