voice

Google offers up secret sauce on new voice search

How voice search technology listens to and spits out information is a complex endeavor, but Google has attempted to explain what mechanisms make its voice search app work in a new research paper it posted earlier today.

Basically, it boils down to data, and lots of it.

According to Google, more data improves all Web services. This may seem obvious, but for better speech recognition, it doesn't only mean a sheer amount of data but also how that data is organized. Google's voice search technology mainly uses data from anonymized queries on Google.com to get the information … Read more

Skype 6.0 reduces barrier to entry and cleans up a bit

Just in time for Windows 8, Skype has now just released a major version update that adds improved integration with Microsoft and Facebook accounts, better messaging, and some minor changes to the user interface.

For those of you who've been living under a rock, Skype is one of the the most popular video chat and voice calling clients amongst our users as well as the world. It offers free calls to other Skype users over the Internet as well as very affordable rates for calling landlines and phones.

Version 6 brings a much simpler registration process, particularly with more … Read more

Google Search vs. Siri: Voice search speed test (video)

Google Search (free) has been on iOS for some time, with well-known search capabilities, access to Google apps, Google Goggles for identifying products, and Voice Search. But an update to the app yesterday enhanced Voice Search with spoken answers, and it quickly became clear Google Search had an edge on Siri -- especially when it comes to speed.

Siri has a distinct advantage in most cases because it's integrated with the iOS. This means you can have Siri "Call Rebecca," for example, and Siri accesses your contact list along with your phone app to make the call. … Read more

Google challenges Apple's Siri

While CNET's New York office works to get power back after the storm, we're bringing you the Update show from our San Francisco office. Tuesday's top tech stories include:

- Superstorm Sandy has knocked out power, Internet and phone service across the east coast. Nearly 8 million people were without power as of Tuesday.

- Google introduced new gadgets: The Nexus 10 will go head-to-head with the iPad. It has a 10-inch screen with higher resolution than the iPad. (But these screens are so good, the difference may be imperceptible to most of us.) And Google released … Read more

Google's Siri competitor for iOS arrives

Nearly three months after its snazzy demo, Google's enhanced voice search for iOS is here.

The service, which mimics some of the functionality found in Google's search technology built into Android as part of Jelly Bean, aims to keep Siri on her toes.

The software (iTunes) provides contextual, spoken results for voice queries and serves up Web searches for everything else. In some brief testing this morning, the answers came back markedly quicker than Apple's own offering, even showing you voice transcriptions as queries were spoken -- something Siri does not do until users are done talking. … Read more

Yelp sued by Village Voice over 'best of' listings

The owner of the Village Voice is suing Yelp over the "best of" lists the site offers in several cities.

Village Voice Media Holdings, (VVMH) which filed the suit on Thursday in Arizona federal court, is targeting Yelp's "best of" listings in Dallas; Denver; Houston; Miami; Phoenix; Seattle; St. Louis; San Francisco; Broward and Palm Beach counties, Fla.; and the Twin Cities in Minnesota. News of the lawsuit was first reported Monday by Law360.

VVMH claims in its lawsuit  that it would be "irreparably harmed by Yelp's unauthorized use of the registered … Read more

Change your voice and add sound effects easily

MorphVOX Pro is a voice changer application with sound effects and background tracks built in. (There is a free application called MorphVOX Junior from the same publisher if you want to evaluate the software.) The MorphVOX Pro software is aimed at those who want to communicate online either with a change in voice characteristics, or with different effects applied. The $39.99 software installs easily.

The MorphVOX Pro has two interfaces. The Studio interface is divided into five panes, one each for selecting preconfigured voices (Goblin, Shade, Cyborg, etc), pitch and timbre controls, sound effects, voice effects and a graphic … Read more

Audio recorder and file manager

eXtra Voice Recorder Lite is an audio recorder and audio file manager. The free Lite version is a subset of the full product available for $9.99. eXtra Voice Recorder Lite installs on your Mac OS device quickly and easily.

The eXtra Voice Recorder Lite interface is clean. The audio recording capabilities are simple to work with. The audio file manager lets you import audio files and see all of them in a simple window. Once you have an audio file selected you can annotate it with metadata, and a search function can examine the metadata as well as file … Read more

Change your voice easily with MorphVOX Junior

MorphVOX Junior is a free voice changer software app for Windows. Although it's designed for online games, you can use it for any purpose that requires voice changing and it works well with most VoIP and IM clients. MorphVOX Junior installs easily, and a relatively clean interface makes it easy to work with. There is a paid version of MorphVOX Junior that adds a lot more capability and better quality, but the free version will be fine for casual users.

Whether you want to change the timbre of your voice, make yourself sound like the opposite sex, or simply … Read more