Voice control is not what it used to be at one point. Back in the days when it was first introduced as part of mobile phones and other gadgets, it was still in its nascent stages. At that point, it was nothing more than a gimmick. This I can say from first-hand experience with older Nokia phones. The accuracy was nowhere near usable and well, it was not something you would want to rely upon.
But in the last one or two years, we have a seen surge of devices that are either partially or fully controlled by voice. Some of these devices are quite recent and represent the cutting edge when it comes to implementing voice control. Of course, interactive voice activated telephone services have existed for quite some time now but there’s a difference here. In those systems you can employ large amounts of processing and storage power to make sure that the accuracy is optimum.
But when it comes to smaller gadgets that are mostly portable and handheld it is a different ball game altogether. As developers already know, it is extremely hard to cram so much in to one small device. Still, newer devices with sophisticated voice control are coming out and these are mostly speaker independent. That means the user can be anyone and the device will still respond.
As I was thinking about all this, I decided to see for myself what all gadgets have come out recently that use voice control. Read on for 5 cool gadgets that can be operated by voice.
5. BlueAnt V1 Voice Control – This one’s from the Bluetooth headset makers called BlueAnt. It features what the company calls BlueGenie Voice User Interface. What that means in plain speak is that you can control the headset with your voice. You can go through set up and other functions by just talking to the headset. You won’t be speaking to a silent machine either. The headset will actually reply and confirm whenever appropriate. The most fun part has to be when you say “Teach Me” and it takes you through an orientation program of sorts. Of course, many of you are thinking that this is a headset, how can you use voice commands with something that you speak into anyway? The V1 has a button that you have to press when you want to use voice commands. You can even mute the headset with a voice command and the headset will confirm that it is now on mute. If you want to know all the commands, ask “What can I say?” and get ready for a novel.
4. The iTalk Clock from Neutrano – This is another great product that you can talk to. The iTalk Clock made by this company called Neutrano will respond to specific voice commands that cover all the aspects of an alarm clock. So you can set the alarm, set the alarm tone, ask it what time it is, what day it is and you can also ask it to snooze when the alarm rings! One good thing about the clock is that it won’t always be listening in to the conversation around it. So if your friend goes “what time is it” near the clock, he won’t be spooked by the clock telling him the correct time. To make it listen to you, you have to address it by saying “Hello iTalk”. Then you can go on issuing commands and asking questions. Of course, you have to greet it again if there has been a gap. Thankfully, when the alarm rings, all you have to do is groan, “Snooze”.
3. The Voice-Heli Radio Control by Voice Toy Helicopter from Taiyo (Japan) – Leave it up to the Japanese companies to come up with really neat stuff. This one was a great find and it took me some time to understand the full thing. The main site is in Japanese, so I am including a Google Translate link. This is a radio controlled toy helicopter that is voice controlled. There is the usual fully equipped radio controller with the toy but it has a headset that you can attach to the controller set and issue voice commands. From what I understand of the entire thing, there are essentially 5 commands that you can issue with your voice. You can start the blades, tell it to go up, go down, change directions and probably stop. [Taiyo Via Xorcyst]
2. Garmin Nuvi 880 – This is a GPS device from Garmin’s flagship line – Nuvi. Garmin is known for being one of the best, if not the best manufacturer of GPS navigation devices. The Nuvi line is essentially GPS navigation for cars with various added features. The 880 is a special one that responds to the user’s voice. This it does via a remote receiver that attaches neatly to your steering wheel. According to Gizmodo, even though it is not the first voice controlled GPS device to hit the market it is definitely the best one out there. You can dictate full addresses to it, search for places like Starbucks, adjust the volume and even say, “Cancel route”. Once you get used to it, you can simply talk to your GPS device without having to use your fingers and then glance at the screen for the information you want. This makes for safer (and less lonely) driving. [Via Gizmodo]
1. The iPhone 3GS – How could you forget the iPhone? It has to be the most popular and the sleekest voice controlled device out there. First of all you can make calls using only your voice. The iPhone is intelligent enough to recognize names from your contacts and handles multiple contacts with the same name quite beautifully. You can also select what song to play, shuffle the playlist and ask, “What’s playing?” Just read my iPhone 3GS review to find out more.
If you want to add to this list, just drop me a few lines in the comments section for an honorary mention 
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