Voice Recognition Debuts on the Palm OS

Posted By: Ryan Thursday, November 11, 2004 4:20:01 PM

A number of new Voice control applications have recently been developed for the palmOne Treo smartphone series and certain Palm OS 5 handhelds with microphones. These new apps offer voice dialing of contacts and voice control of many common PDA functions.

Treo 650 - Voice Dialing
palmOne has posted a new Treo Voice Dialing application by Voice Signal exclusively for the Treo 650 on the support downloads page. The software allows you to place phone calls with your voice and dial any number or person in your address book.

Treo Voice Dialing uses "speaker independent" technology that does not require samples of your speech in order to work. This means you can start voice dialing immediately without a setup. The program is a demo that works for 14 days, and then is available for purchase from palmOne. It does not appear compatible with the Treo 600, nor is a price listed.

Treo 600 - Voice Dialer
Grover Industries has recently released Voice Dialer v1.0.3 for the Treo 600. The program allows you to voice dial contacts after a training process. There is a demo available and the program costs $19.95 to register, It also requires the latest Treo firmware.

Another option for the Treo 600 is VoiceLauncher. It too requires samples of your voice to learn commands but it can also perform other tasks outside of dialing contacts. The program will even monitor ambient noise and auto adjust the mic sensitivity.

Palm OS 5 - Voice Commander
For Treos as well as Palm OS 5 units with microphones including some Tungsten and Clie models, Voice Commander is voice recognition software for the Palm OS 5 and higher. You can use voice commands to launch any application and activate system commands such Find, create a new Memo, fetch email, open system Preferences and more.

Accorinding to ToySoft, Voice Commander v0.88 is easy to use and configure. You activate it by assigning the app to any of the four hard keys. When you press the activation key you can then speak the voice command. Therefore, you can be in any application to use a voice command. The program is available to try and sells for $14.95 USD.

Thanks to gadgetguru for the tip.

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Voice commands

tooele @ 11/11/2004 7:33:34 PM #
Nice idea hopefully it works well it would be better if it was a free update from palmone.

Tungsten T3 + T610
RE: Voice commands
Hal2000 @ 11/11/2004 8:11:29 PM #
If the T5 had a mike, you would have to say please after each command.

Zodiac2/T616
2.128 gigs under the hood.
RE: Voice commands
tooele @ 11/11/2004 9:16:38 PM #
I forgot the T5 didn't have a microphone another cool feature that it doesn't have and the T3 does.

Tungsten T3 + T610
RE: Voice commands
LiveFaith @ 11/12/2004 9:29:17 AM #
Yeah, but PalmOne is already throwing in a free hardcase only 4 weeks after release. Should get down to it sub-$299 market value soon.

Pat Horne; www.churchoflivingfaith.com
RE: Voice commands
tthiel @ 11/12/2004 10:36:12 AM #
$299 is $50 too high.

RE: Voice commands
Calroth @ 11/14/2004 5:15:07 PM #
"$299 is $50 too high."

That doesn't mean much. No matter what price it is, someone will say that it is $50 too high. Even if it is $50.

There's also Dragon NS

otter @ 11/12/2004 1:25:22 AM #
The newest release of Dragon NaturallySpeaking (ver. 8) supposedly has support for Palm devices.

We shall see. I haven't seen it in retail yet, but apparently it's out already.

RE: There's also Dragon NS
otter @ 11/12/2004 1:28:38 AM #
Yeah, so it's not technically Voice "Recognition," but close enough for government work... and PalmOne.

Hardly...

just_little_me @ 11/12/2004 1:55:33 AM #
Have all these guys just now figured out how to do Fast-Fourier Transforms...?


JLM.

RE: Hardly...
ackmondual @ 11/12/2004 3:46:49 AM #
about high damn time. I figured PPC would beat Palm in implemnting this feature (i saw a box for the software at a local Circuit City or Staples for about $15, unless i've mistakened it for someth else and it's actually $40!). I'm just glad Palm finally got on the road here. Hope it works well.

[signature0]the secret to enjoying your job is to have a hobby that's even worse[/signature0]
[signature1]My PDAs: Visor --> Visor Neo (blue) --> Zire 71.... so ends the "marathon", for now[/signature1]
RE: Hardly...
JonathanChoo @ 11/12/2004 6:21:15 AM #
Should be Microsoft Voice Command if its for US$40 or Fonix Voice Central 2 (US$30).

I have tried both and even though its good its more of a gimmick. You still can't reply to e-mails or type text via real time voice.

Generic PDA > 5mx > Vx > m505 > N770C > T625C > NR70V > e310 > m550 > h2210 > T/T3 & h4150
StarTac > T28m > T39m > T68m > T610 > T630 > K700i

RE: Hardly...
RhinoSteve @ 11/12/2004 2:34:17 PM #
Voice recognition has always been a speciality market. "Dictate e-mail?" You are not going to see that for a long, long time. FFTs? Well that is only 5% of a good speech recognition routine. The rest is a art of building a weighted statistical phonome database.

Voice rec. in this market is to get sales and press. Rarely does someone put it to regular use. However, nice move to get it in on the 650 and not a dedicated piece of hardware.


RE: Hardly...
Altema @ 11/13/2004 2:04:13 AM #
Don't know about you, but I've been looking for a way to launch apps and do system commands without looking or tapping. Seems to work well on the T3, and has functions like fetch mail, menu, and you can set an exit command that activates the launcher. Only downside is that fetching email seems to do a direct app call which does not allow BlueFang to automatically turn the radio on. Now if only it could do strings...

Regardless, I'm buyin' this one.

RE: Hardly...
RhinoSteve @ 11/16/2004 2:17:05 PM #
And do you want it delivered by Santa Clause or the Easter Bunny?
RE: Hardly...
Altema @ 11/16/2004 6:21:25 PM #
esellerate delivered just fine...

Voice Commander err

StatCoder.com @ 11/13/2004 12:30:56 PM #
Voice Commander gave me only errors when I tried to record a command on my Clie TH-55
RE: Voice Commander err
Strider_mt2k @ 11/13/2004 3:44:49 PM #
Mine too.



RE: Voice Commander err
Strider_mt2k @ 11/14/2004 6:37:10 AM #
When I contacted Toysoft, the reply was, "Then it doesn't work on the Sony. Does it use os 5.2.1?"

"It does indeed." was my response to them.

I'm not impressed.

RE: Voice Commander err
Strider_mt2k @ 11/14/2004 6:58:27 PM #
Okay! I take it back.
Toysoft got back to me with something to try:

I was asked to DL and try another app of Toysoft's called "Personal Audio Recorder" to see if IT would work. Unfortunately it doesn't, but that leads them to believe that it's a problem with a lib file.

Not being a developer, I relayed my error code to them, and we'll hope for the best.

It's a bummer that it doesn't work yet, but the responses from Toysoft make me think they might be able to address the issue.

Our THs are a breed apart and this is the downside unfortunately.

RE: Voice Commander err
Strider_mt2k @ 11/15/2004 12:08:03 PM #
Latest from Toysoft support:

"that is the problem then. the TH55 probably dont have the standard PalmOS sound manager."

bummer

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