nuance

Move over Siri, Sherpa's in town

The march toward a better, voice-controlled future continues, even with Siri, Google Voice Search and newer digital assistants, such as Donna, already on the scene.

The latest entrant is Sherpa, a natural language Android app that's a top app in Spain and Latin America and today is rolling out in the U.S. -- first for Android, eventually for iOS.

Like Siri, Sherpa attempts to help organize your life and perform tasks when you ask the app questions or give it commands. It's the brainchild of Xabier Uribe-Etxebarria, who's based in Bilbao, Spain, and has been working … Read more

Talk to the ad with mobile Voice Ads

CNET Update is no fool:

April Fools' Day prank announcements and fake gadgets consumed the tech world Monday. But once piece of real news could be mistaken as a joke: Nuance is designing mobile advertisments that can understand language and talk back to consumers.

The streaming TV service Aereo is making headlines. The Wall Street Journal reports Aereo is talking with AT&T and Dish about a partnership to expand offerings. Aereo also won a victory in its legal fight against TV networks, as a federal appeals court in New York upheld the ruling that Aereo does not violate … Read more

Crave giveaway: Nuance Dragon Dictate for Mac 3

Congrats to Craig L. of East Wenatchee, Wash., for winning a $200 gift certificate to geek shop KlearGear.com in last week's giveaway, and to Chuck V. of Eden Prairie, Minn., for scoring a bag of CES swag the week before that. Now, on to this week's business...

Are you a fan of speech recognition software? Put your hands up in the air. We're giving away a copy of the latest version of Nuance's Dragon Dictate for Mac.

Dragon Dictate for Mac 3 promises 15 percent better out-of-the box accuracy than its predecessor, as well as … Read more

Rumor Has It: Will iOS 6 get a real Google Maps app soon (please)?

If you had trouble finding this post, that's probably because you were using Apple's new Maps app. With the release of iOS 6, Apple replaced the awesome Google Maps with an app of its own. The result? A lot of frustrated, lost iPhone users.

Also this week, we check out a rumor that the Wii U will be region-locked, just like all the previous Nintendo consoles, and Nuance may be developing software that will allow you to wake up your phone by yelling at it. Great, just what we need.

Thanks for watching!

Heard a tech rumor you … Read more

Crave giveaway: Nuance Dragon NaturallySpeaking 12

Congrats to Jonathan H. of Flushing, N.Y., for winning two canvas-mounted Instagram prints from CanvasPop in last week's giveaway. This week's freebie is really something to talk about. We're offering up a copy of Dragon NaturallySpeaking 12, Nuance's new voice recognition software for PCs.

Dragon NaturallySpeaking 12 promises 20 percent more accuracy than its predecessor, Dragon 11, as well as faster speeds and new technology that learns your preferences as you use it.

The product plays better than ever with Gmail and Hotmail, according to Nuance, and also extends the free Dragon Remote Microphone App experience to Android, turning compatible phones into a wireless microphone for Dragon for PC. … Read more

Nuance unveils Nina, a Siri sister that lives in third-party apps

Nuance, a company that plays a part in some of the most well-known speech-recognition services on the market, has unveiled its own intra-app service, called Nina.

With Nina's help, iOS and Android developers can bring speech recognition, text-to-speech, and voice biometrics to their individual applications. Nina works much in the same way as Siri, allowing users to provide voice commands that the technology then follows. And with the open software development kit, Nuance says that it can be integrated quickly into existing apps.

Nuance has played an integral role in Siri's development. Nuance provided technology to Siri before … Read more

How to install the new Swype beta on Android

Swype, which was bought by Nuance recently, has released a new public beta for Android. It has some interesting new features, including the capability to learn as you go and built-in Dragon voice recognition. If you're interested in trying it out, here's how to install and enable the new Swype beta for Android:

Install Swype beta

Step 1: Register for the Swype beta at http://beta.swype.com/android/create.

Step 2: On your Android device, go to Settings > Application settings and tap on the box next to Unknown sources. This will allow you to install apps … Read more

Spansion, Nuance announce Acoustic Coprocessor for automotive voice recognition

SAN FRANCISCO--In-car voice recognition technology has come a long way, but there's much room for improvement. One problem voice-recognition technology faces is that is that there's only so much memory and processing power available in the dashboard at any given time, which has to be shared with navigation, media playback, traffic data, and other infotainment functions. Spansion, a company best known for providing flash memory products to OEMs, thinks it has the solution in its newly unveiled Spansion Acoustic Coprocessor, claimed to be the first of its kind.

The Spansion Acoustic Coprocessor is basically a system on a … Read more

'Phone, unlock thyself'

Sooner than you think, the Holy Grail of mobile password security could land on your phone thanks to new tech from Nuance called Dragon ID.

Dragon ID is a voice biometrics system from the same company behind the voice-recognition tech in Dragon Dictate for PCs and Dragon Go for iOS and Android. It promises a hands-free login system, but Nuance isn't putting it out in an app.

Instead, it's licensing the technology to manufacturers so they can build it into their phones.

"We're going to be pretty aggressive with our longstanding OEM partners, so we certainly … Read more

From Nuance, Siri in your next car

If you find yourself with Siri envy but don't want to pony up the $600 for a phone, you may be able to get that same level of convenience and computerized companionship in your car.

Nuance's technology powers Apple's voice-recognition system, and the company is making its natural language command platform available to automotive manufacturers with Dragon Drive. Vehicles equipped with Dragon Drive will enable drivers to use spoken commands to get the system to perform a range of tasks, including open-ended conversational text messaging, getting directions to restaurants, or finding traffic information.

The benefit of Dragon … Read more