Gizmodo: Voice Commands

Kapsys' Kapten is Screenless, Voice-Driven, Key Ring-Sized GPS

Kit Eaton — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 04:41:31 EDT

This tiny GPS system from Kapten shuns the current preoccupation for large, high-detail touchscreens... it has, in fact, no screen at all. There're a bunch of led-lit icons at the top, indicating car-, pedestrian-mode and so on, but that's it. All navigation requests and instructions are made by you talking to the Kapten and it talking to you. It's apparently aimed mainly at pedestrian users, and measuring 2.9 x 1.7 x 0.5 inches is small enough to slip onto a key ring. Somehow there's a Bluetooth chipset in there, alongside an MP3 player and FM radio, and it packs 4GB of internal memory. Sadly, the only instructions it'll utter will sound like "Tournez à droite, dans 100 metres" since it's being released in France next month for around $220, and there's no info on whether it'll move outside the land of the moody pout. [Navigadget]

Palm Adding Voice Commands to Treos For Messaging and Browsing

Sean Fallon — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 16:30:46 EDT

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]

Voice Activation Lameness is All Too Real

Charlie White — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 09:15:00 EST

We don't care about the Ford Sync car this commercial's trying to sell you, but we find its depiction of balky voice-activated devices all too realistic. Knowingly chuckle along with us as these tools/fools who think they've mastered voice commands get their comeuppance. If this Ford Sync is like our Honda Civic Hybrid, its voice activation might still suck. It's just too noisy in a car environment to work well. Anyway, the idea of telling machines what to do and actually having them carry out your orders is compelling, but we've noticed far more situations where those systems don't want to do what you say. Maybe someday. Open the pod bay doors, Hal. [bb Gadgets]