Smartphones, centro, nuance, palm, palm os, treo, voice commands

Palm Adding Voice Commands to Treos For Messaging and Browsing

Thanks to an agreement with Nuance Communications, Palm will be delivering voice command capabilities to Palm OS supported smartphones like the Centro and the Treo. More specifically, Palm will be utilizing Nuance's VSuite apps to handle functions like name dialing, digit dialing, message addressing for text, picture, and video messages as well as application launching.

There will also be an optional Voice Control feature that will allow users to browse the web, create calendar entries and send emails/text messages using voice commands. Just don't let all of this hands-free freedom go to your head. It still doesn't give you carte blanche to multi-task while driving down the highway. [InformationWeek]

4:30 PM on Wed Mar 26 2008
By Sean Fallon
2,539 views
15 comments

Comments

Evangelion at 04:42 PM on 03/26/08
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Sounds pretty cool. I'm interested to see how it turns out.
92BuickLeSabre at 04:43 PM on 03/26/08
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Koan: If a Palm can listen but no one speaks, can it truly be said to hear?
dbett at 04:51 PM on 03/26/08
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Err...Nuance came with my Sprint Treo 755p when I bought it almost a year ago.

Not sure why this is news??
Darrone at 04:51 PM on 03/26/08
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i've never really felt that anyone has sped up phone processes with voice control. It always seems slower than manually entering a name or command.
Skeptic at 05:05 PM on 03/26/08
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Well, this is something they should back port to all older Treo phones with enough processing power. The California handsfree law kicks in in a few months and it is the dialing the phone that is more dangerous than talking on it.
Monty at 05:22 PM on 03/26/08
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Lipstick on a pig?

That said, a number of our execs do like the voice recognition in the BB 8830's they are carrying, and it is very handy while illegally using your cell phone in a car. So, given the way cell phone laws are changing the game, they probably needed to do this.
stingray at 05:29 PM on 03/26/08
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Again, who gives a rats ass about Palm, they are dead already. They should just give up and disappear...
faslane at 05:44 PM on 03/26/08
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Palm=Dead this news Old School, did it a year ago at least!! Nothing new here.

Faslane
Hat Trick at 05:53 PM on 03/26/08
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What a joke. They add this functionality yet I can't even look up my calendar and talk on the phone at the same time, my device freezes 60% I try to do anything with it. And the voice commands are going to drain what little precious battery power the devices have. I can't even get to dinner time without recharging.
ackthbbft at 06:04 PM on 03/26/08
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The demo voice dialing program I dl'd from Palm didn't even work as well as the built-in voice dialing on my older Samsung i500. Very sad.

If this is the same program as the one I already tried, I'll pass.
packetsniffer at 06:31 PM on 03/26/08
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@Hat Trick:
What do you mean you can't look up your calendar while you're talking on the phone? Press the Calendar button -- heck, press the Home button -- while you're on the call. You can run just about any app you want during a call.

And if your device is freezing, quit putting crappy apps on it.
Tank at 07:03 PM on 03/26/08
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When Palm is officially dead, will my Clie still work?
sam.k at 07:42 PM on 03/26/08
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Sprint Treos and Centros have this already. The news is that it's going to be available on AT&T and Verizon.
lightningrob at 07:54 PM on 03/26/08
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I want voice command on my WinMo phone, and more than just voice dialing. It takes way too many keystrokes and jogdial presses to enter even a simple calendar event. I should just be able to speak: "New appointment, Bunny Ranch, Wednesday, 7pm, Add note, Tell wife I'm working late".
Hat Trick at 10:50 AM on 03/27/08
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@packetsniffer: Good Messaging is the *only* app--crappy or otherwise--I put on it. Its calendar is inaccessible when I'm using the phone. And the frozen keypad (really a typing lag, where the phone does not respond for 5 seconds or so while you type) is a well documented bug with Palm. They tried to fix it with a firmware update but were not successful.