If your Android phone already seems more like a personal assistant, wait until you have the ability to give it orders. Google’s Android 2.2 now features Voice Search with Voice Actions, an app that enables smartphones to set reminders and alarms, take dictation for and send e-mails or texts, browse the Internet, get directions, or search for music.
The actions are carried out by tapping the microphone button or holding the search button and using commands such as “note to self,” “listen to” “go to,” “navigate to,” or “map of.”
Android phones have had the ability to search through Google via voice commands for about two years. And while voice dialing for programmed contacts is nothing new, Voice Actions will actually look up a number for you, then dial it after you check that it’s what you were looking for.
Smart Brunch
“Let’s say I want to get some food at my favorite brunch place but I don’t have the number,” says Mike LeBeau, the lead engineer for Voice Actions in a promotional video. LeBeau, wearing a bright blue Android T-shirt, then speaks the name of a Brooklyn bakery into his phone and it dials the number.
“Voice Actions uses the magic of Google Maps to find businesses fast,” LeBeau says.
Michael Gartenberg of the Altimeter Group, who has tried the app, reports that Froyo devices — those using the latest Android operating system — are well suited for voice applications. “Google is working very hard to differentiate by incorporating more speech directly into the [operating system] for common tasks,” he said.
Voice Actions is already available on the Motorola Droid 2 handsets released by Verizon Wireless on Thursday and on the Nexus One, which is no longer being sold, and it will likely spread like wildfire as more phones get the Android 2.2 upgrade over the… Read more
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