Voice control

Apple Is Betting Everything on a Voice-Controlled AI Siri

The new AI-powered Siri needs to actually work, or it could mark the beginning of a downward spiral for Apple’s future.

40 New Tricks For Your Amazon Echo

Amazon recently announced that the Alexa AI powering its Echo and other hardware has now learned 1,000 “skills” (up from just 135 in January). In case you’re not up to speed with all the new tricks, we’ve picked out 40 of our favorites—you can discover the other 960 yourself. Our previous Echo guide focused on…

The Best Cortana Tricks to Take Control of Your Computer

Oh dear—not still clicking around with a mouse and keyboard are you? What is this, early 2015? Cortana comes baked into Windows 10 now, so you can shout out commands and control your laptop or desktop using your voice instead. Here are some of the neat ways you can make use of it. First of…

Everything You Can Say to Your Amazon Echo

Voice control is one of the core capabilities of the Amazon Echo: the tall, black cylinder comes with a basic remote and some on-board buttons, but speaking commands and questions is the most intuitive way of interacting with it. If you’re wondering just what your Echo can do and which commands it responds to, here’s…

Voice Control on Apple TV Is About To Get Way More Useful

When the new Apple TV was announced, the inclusion of Siri was a strong selling point—too bad it turned out to suck. Finally, though, Apple is making voice control on the set-top box rather more useful. The latest version of tvOS issued to developers includes something that will prove rather useful: voice dictation. As our…

There’s a new update forAmazon Echo that adds a bunch of new features, like news headlines on a particular topic, more smart home controls, and better control over alarms and timers. The full list of Alexa’s tricks is over on Amazon’s site. [Amazonvia Engadget] Contact the author at [email protected].

Turn on “OK Google” in Chrome OS to start talking to your Chromebook

In recent weeks you might’ve heard all about Cortana’s integration with Windows 10, enabling you to run web searches, check your diary and toggle system settings by chatting to your computer. A similar kind of functionality is available on Chrome OS, with more comprehensive features on the way. From the Chrome menu, enable the “OK…

I Installed Windows 10 and Now I’m Talking to My Computer

Unless you’re one of the handful of people rocking a Windows Phone, you won’t have much experience with Cortana, Microsoft’s personal digital assistant. With the roll-out of Windows 10, Cortana is about to make a lot of new friends very quickly—and like me, they might soon find themselves shouting instructions at their computer on a…

You’re About to Start Finding Amazon’s Echo AI In Unexpected Places

Could Amazon actually win the race to build the most widely-used AI voice platform? As unlikely as it sounds, Amazon is pushing far harder than Microsoft or Apple to get its technology into the hands of other companies. Today, Amazon said it would make Alexa—the voice-controlled assistant that sits inside its Echo hardware—free to any…

Siri vs. Google Now vs. Cortana: The Ultimate Voice Control Showdown

In the months since Windows Phone 8.1 showed up complete with its voice assistant, Android Lollipop and iOS 8 have arrived, so it’s time to pit our phone-friends against each other again. Voice control is better than ever. For the most part, as you can see, Cortana, Siri, and Google Now are mostly on even…

If Amazon Echo Said What It Was Really Thinking

Amazon’s Echo looks promising. It’s Amazon’s most interesting—and important—product in years, if it lives up to its promise. But what if it works, and also hates you? Amazon’s original promo is pretty optimistic (if also a little awkward). Redditor The_Invincible is a little less so, and edited together a new promo video that offers an…

12 Voice Commands To Try On Your New Android Wear Watch

If you’ve splurged on one of the new Android Wear watches then you’ll know it’s very much a case of learning as you go. Since you probably won’t immediately know what these devices are capable of, so here are 12 useful voice commands you can experiment with to get your watch to do your bidding.…

“OK Google” Now Works From Anywhere On Your Android Phone

There’s a new update to the Google Search app that’s starting to roll out that lets you say “OK Google” to trigger voice search from anywhere instead of just the homescreen. That is awesome. We heard some rumors that Google would be trying to bring the yell-at-your-phone-from-anywhere superpowers the Moto X has to all phones,…

This Simple Siri Hack Lets You Control Anything With Your iPhone

Voice control is a super convenient way to control stuff with your phone, at least when your AI isn’t just shouting error messages at other computers. Googolplex makes it even better by unlocking Siri to let her control your stereo, your thermostat; honestly, just about anything. The premise is simple; by just changing your iPhone’s…

Chrome Is Finally Getting Hands-Free “Ok Google” Search

Even if your family gets bored and stops listening to you this Thanksgiving, at least your computer will still have open ears. Just in time for the holidays, Google has officially released voice recognition for Chrome browsers in the form of a Chrome extension. To enable the new Voice Search Hotword ability, all you need…

The First Piece of Google Chrome’s Conversational Future Is in Place

The first crazy leaps into a Star Trek future just showed up in the latest stable build of Chrome. As of now, “Conversational Search” has now rolled out, which means that Chrome can now remember what you’re searching for if you ask a couple of questions in a row. Like Google demoed at I/O, the…

The wait formobile app voice control is finally over for DirecTV customers—or those with iPhones, at least. Presumably, an Android version should be soon to follow.

Say Hi to The New Google Chrome Beta, It’s Listening

Voice control has been the trend in phones for a while now, but it’s not content to just stay there. The newest Chrome Beta is introducing a Web Speech API, which means a talk-y future is on the horizon, hopefully. So far, Google’s got a demo where you can dictate a little messages for your…

Soon Your Phone Will Be Able To Figure Out How You’re Feeling

Of course we spend a lot of time talking into our phones, but more and more we’re also spending a lot of time talking to them. For the most part they tend to be pretty good at simply retrieving data that way, but soon they might be able to figure out your mood as well.…

Zypr: Voice Control for Every Device and Application

One day, we’ll all expect our gadgets to respond intelligently to voice commands. But right now, with the exception of Siri, nothing really works very well. Sure, there is software that takes pretty good dictation— Google’s voice search for example—and the infotainment systems in cars have incorporated clunky voice control systems to make phone calls…