voice

TiVo may be falling under the superficial spell of techno-fashion with its Glo Remote, but competing gadgets know that beauty is only clamshell deep. Take, for example, the InVoca voice-activated universal remote, which supposedly recognizes up to four voices and 25 commands for your TV, VCR, DVD player and other devices. It also has a charging base--shouldn't all products have those by now?--and a hands-free surfing function (we're not sure exactly how that works). The InVoca's name reminds us of an Italian scooter, but we've already gotten over that. If it works as billed, we … Read more

Machine won out over man in a text messaging competition at a mobile-communications industry event this week in Orlando, Fla.

The John Henry of the event was Ben Cook of Utah, the Guinness World Record holder for texting, who lost to Nuance's Mobile Dictation software that converts human speech into text on a mobile phone. The losing round used the same text message that Cook typed to win his record title: "The razor toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human."… Read more