Tag Archives: nuance

Nuance Dragon Notes brings quick, spoken memos and messages to Windows 8

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Nuance Dragon Notes for Windows 8 lets us speak our memos

Sometimes, the smallest and simplest apps make the most sense. Take Nuance's new Dragon Notes for Windows 8, for example. Unlike its NaturallySpeaking cousin, it's not a universal tool: instead, it's narrowly focused on the voice dictation of memos, email, social networking updates and web searches. That limited scope leads to a very simple interface, however, and slims down the price from $100 to a far more accessible $20. Fans of minimalism can grab Dragon Notes directly from Nuance on May 15th, although they'll need to spend $10 for every language they speak beyond English.

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Source: Nuance

Swype 1.5 drops the beta tag, hits Google Play for 99 cents

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Swype 1.5 drops the beta tag, hits Google Play for 99 cents

We joke that Gmail holds the record for the most drawn-out test phase, but Swype comes close: the keyboard replacement has been considered a work in progress on various platforms since before Android devices hit the streets, and well after it started shipping with phones. The developers at Nuance are a little braver as of today, as they're launching Swype 1.5 for Android without any kind of beta label attached -- they really, truly consider it done. Mind you, there won't be a huge difference versus recent betas. The 1.5 update adds a quick shortcut to Dragon Mobile Assistant for those who have it installed, expands Living Language to 20 dialects, adds two new themes and refines both Smart Touch and Smart Reselect.

It's where you can get Swype 1.5 that may be the biggest change. For the first time, Swype is launching as a straightforward Google Play download that should support the same easy installs and upgrades as most Android releases. Unfortunately, that also means a price tag for the store edition. Nuance is charging 99 cents on Google Play for a "limited time" before a price increase, so we'll have to shell out if we want to take the easier path. The beta program remains intact, however -- and when Swype is at least temporarily undercutting SwiftKey on pricing, we'd consider spending some cash.

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Source: Swype

Amazon has reportedly acquired Evi for voice-guided search

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Amazon may have quietly acquired Evi for voiceguided search

Amazon isn't shy about wanting to own as much of the Kindle Fire's software experience as it can, which creates a challenge when implementing voice search -- the company can't just re-skin Google Now and call it a day. The next-quickest alternative is to buy a company wholesale, and TechCrunch has evidence that Amazon may have gone that route through a very stealthy acquisition of Evi, best known for its eponymous personal assistant app. While neither side has publicly commented on the deal, our colleagues have noticed that all of Evi's directors and its company secretary have been replaced by staffers linked to Amazon UK. If it's not an acquisition, there's been at least some loss of autonomy. We don't know exactly what Amazon would be doing should the acquisition prove real, although Evi's Nuance-powered voice assistance for Android and iOS may be enough of a clue in itself -- there's only so many places Amazon can go with such a narrowly focused company.

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Source: TechCrunch

Panasonic 2013 Smart TVs wield Nuance Dragon TV for voice control, text-to-speech

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Panasonic 2013 LCD TV

Panasonic and Nuance have been close partners on TV voice recognition in the past; we now know that they're getting a bit cozier for Panasonic's 2013 Smart TVs. The company's newer LCDs and plasmas with voice recognition use Nuance's Dragon TV for voice-only control of basics like volume as well as content and web searches. The engine will also speak out content and menus if you need more than just visual confirmation of where you're going. Panasonic's refreshed TV line is gradually rolling out over the spring, so those who see a plastic remote control as so very 2010 won't have long to wait.

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Via: SlashGear

Source: Panasonic

Dragon Mobile Assistant 3.0 can share locations, call meeting numbers for you

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DNP Dragon Mobile Assistant 30 can share locations, call meeting numbers for you

Nuance has long wanted Dragon Mobile Assistant to do as much of the heavy lifting as possible for common Android phone tasks. The newly available 3.0 beta is shouldering even more of the load, including responsibilities that can still involve separate apps with rivals. It's now possible to share map coordinates, or ask for someone else's location, through simple requests. The refresh will also skip the drudgery needed to dial a conference call or an important friend: set a calendar event with phone numbers and passcodes attached and Dragon can punch in the numbers itself, right on cue. As a final touch, the upgrade brings truly hands-free text messaging that includes both spoken incoming messages and voice-dictated replies. The beta remains free and will work with Android 2.3 or above; if Google Now and S Voice aren't pulling enough weight, there might be some relief through the source link.

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Source: Google Play

Nuance Wintermute hands-on: a cross-platform, cloud-based personal assistant

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Nuance Wintermute hands-on

It's becoming increasingly clear that the next wave of mobile computing is going to be voice driven. Mobile assistants like Siri and Google Now are garnering plenty of media attention and earning legions of fans. Nuance, the company behind Dragon -- often cited as the gold standard in voice recognition software -- wants to make sure it doesn't get left behind after pioneering the art of speaking to your computer. Dragon Mobile Assistant was the first step towards that goal, but it stuck primarily to searches and a few simple tasks. After leaving our stage here at CES, the company was nice enough to take us back to a suite where it demoed a project codenamed Wintermute. Besides throwing a bone to William Gibson fans, the project aims to make Nuance's personal assistant truly personal and platform agnostic by building a profile of individual users in the cloud.

While clearly very much in the early stages, what we saw was none the less impressive. The mobile app, was able to easily recognize queries such as "what is the score of the Celtics game" and obey commands like "play music by the Rolling Stones." Nuance even threw in a bit of snide, Siri-like personality -- the assistant quipped about the rep being too young to listen to the Stones. That response was obviously triggered by the fact that the app knew Sean Brown, a senior manager at the company, was born well after the band's hey day.

Continue reading Nuance Wintermute hands-on: a cross-platform, cloud-based personal assistant

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Live from the Engadget CES Stage: an interview with Nuance’s Vlad Sejnoha (update: video embedded)

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We'll be talking about the potential of voice recognition with Nuance, the company behind the popular Dragon NaturallySpeaking and features in hardware like Samsung's Smart TVs. The company's CTO Vlad Sejnoha will be joining us on the stage.

January 9, 2013 7:30 PM EST

Check out our full CES 2013 stage schedule here!

Update: video embedded

Continue reading Live from the Engadget CES Stage: an interview with Nuance's Vlad Sejnoha (update: video embedded)

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Nuance’s Project Wintermute targets Siri and Google Now with cross-platform virtual assistant

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Nuance's Project Wintermute targets Siri and Google Now with crossplatform virtual assistant

Nuance is working, not so quietly it turns out, on a challenger to Siri and Google Now. Codenamed Project Wintermute, the voice recognition pioneer's latest effort focuses on building a cross-platform, cloud-based virtual assistant. Nuance VP Matt Revis told The Next Web, that the company "want[s] to be completely platform agnostic." Rather than locking people into Android or iOS, it wants people to be able to tap into Wintermute from any computer, handset or tablet. Even TVs are being targeted -- in one demo a Nuance rep asked a television to "put the game on" and it tuned into to the Notre Dame game. It automatically made an educated guess about which "game" the rep wanted to watch. The cloud-based nature makes it easier for Wintermute to be ported from platform to platform, but it will pose an obstacle since a strong data connection will be necessary and there will be some inherent lag between speaking commands and receiving a reply. Some of the details have yet to be sussed out, but perhaps Nuance CTO Vlad Sejnoha will have some more detail for us when he swings by our CES stage this afternoon.

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Nuance and ZTE annouce multi-year collaboration on voice-enabled Android devices

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Nuance and ZTE annouce multiyear collaboration on voiceenabled Android devices

ZTE and Nuance have entered into another multi-year deal for voice activated services on ZTE devices. This time around, though, we'll see a larger focus on in-car services using ZTE's yet to be released Car Mode app -- which will be available in more than 25 languages at launch. Like most in-car setups the focus is of course remaining safe while driving but not giving up the interaction with the services on your mobile you've come to love. Using Nuance's stellar voice to text magic drivers will have access to text messages, calling features and music control without the need for a data connection. Car mode is activated with a wake-up word at which point you'll be assailed with a soft spoken barrage of information from your set without requiring eyes or fingers-on to get tasks done. Users can quickly interrupt any current command or incoming audio as well as put the system in a "do not disturb" mode if you just need a little peace til you arrive at your destination. Car Mode will come pre-installed on ZTE sets shipping this year.

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New Swype beta adds ‘Living Language,’ uses crowd-sourcing to predict your texts

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New Swype beta adds 'Living Language,' uses crowdsourcing to predict your texts

The Swype keyboard has already evolved several times since it debuted a few years ago, adding Dragon Dictation for voice texts and later introducing personalized dictionaries and culturally relevant "hotwords." The latest beta introduces Swype Living Language, which is meant to further personalize your keyboard by analyzing your texts and providing predictions based on your most-used words. There's also an editing feature that flags potentially incorrect words and suggests likely alternatives (think "ged morning" vs. "good morning"). In addition to making texts more accurate, the goal is to track trending words based on location -- you know the word "CES" is gonna blow up in Vegas this week, for instance. That information on will make for some interesting statistics in the future, but for now you can download the Swype beta for Android via the source link.

Continue reading New Swype beta adds 'Living Language,' uses crowd-sourcing to predict your texts

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