T-Mobile Announces The MyTouch 3G Slide With Genius Button’s Universal Voice-Activated Controls
Tuesday mornings are usually a delight for announcements (of all sorts). Today, T-Mobile is officially announcing the T-Mobile MyTouch Slide and sheds some light on what that captivating Genius Button does. Teaming up with Nuance Communications – the innovators behind Dragon NaturallySpeaking on your desktop – they’ve introduced their new Dragon Dictation technology embedded into the Android platform that will allow users to control their phone and input text using voice-activated commands at the touch of a button.
What’s different about this from Android’s standard “Voice Dialer” is that you’re given a lot more freedom in what you say and what you can do (and it’ll be a lot easier to use). For instance, instead of me having to say “Open Messaging”, then press the Speech-to-Text button, then speak, I can simply hit the Genius Button and say “Send text to Rob Jackson. Hey are you around? Get back to me if you can.” all in one swift sentence and the system will know right away what to do.
That’s just one of the many things you’ll be able to control using the Genius Button, and it sounds exciting. I can’t wait to see a demo of this thing in action. T-Mobile’s vice president of product development Andrew Sherrard says:
“In partnering with Nuance, a leader in speech technology, we’ve been able to create a new experience which makes it easier for our customers to stay connected with the important people in their lives.Our consumers now have the ability to easily and quickly communicate with their favorite people through text and e-mail with the push of one button and the sound of their voice.”
It’ll be interesting to see how fluid Nuance’s technology works to streamline the voice experience on an Android device. I know – at least for me – I find the built-in voice experience to be clunky (two different applications for search and phone control, still have to click around to get things done, etc). T-Mobile’s My Account 3.0 app will also have pristine integration with the Dragon Dictation technology, with T-Mobile stating that it’ll allow you to access and manage every piece of your account with the sound of your voice.
Michael Thompson, senior vice president and General Manager, Nuance Mobile said,
“We believe the T-Mobile MyTouch 3G Slide’s speech capabilities are perhaps the most innovative examples of how speech will elevate the mobile experience. T-Mobile is truly taking advantage of our connected and embedded natural language capabilities to bring an incredibly unique Android device and one-of-a-kind consumer experience to market. Now T-Mobile consumers have one-button, one-shot speech access for messaging, finding directions, accessing information on the Web – and it’s all available right out of the box.”
The T-Mobile MyTouch 3G Slide will be on its way to stores this June in Red, White, and Black variations. Be sure to check out T-Mobile’s official site for some nice 360-degree phone action and to let them know you want to be notified when more information about the phone and its availability are announced. Read ahead for the full press briefing.
NUANCE ADVANCED SPEECH CAPABILITIES DEBUT ON NEW T-MOBILE MYTOUCH 3G SLIDE
New Genius Button Feature Enables ‘One-Button’ Voice Control of Favorite Apps, Dragon Dictation for Messaging and Text-to-Speech for Hands-Free Message Readback
BURLINGTON, MA – May 4, 2010 Nuance Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: NUAN) today announced its innovative natural language speech technology is featured on the new T-Mobile® myTouch 3G™ Slide, the latest Android™-powered phone from T-Mobile USA, Inc.
The myTouch 3G Slide introduces T-Mobile’s Genius Button™ built on Nuance’s intuitive speech platform. The first of its kind the Genius Button provides consumers one-button voice access to control the phone and its features including many of the mobile applications they use most – making calls, sending emails and text messages, searching the Web, finding businesses and directions, and much more.
The phone incorporates a revolutionary, pervasive voice interface that works right out of the box – no apps to download, no premium download fees or recurring monthly charges for use of the voice interface. Nuance’s successful Dragon Dictation is also embedded on the smartphone for fast and easy text dictation in any text field, and includes a convenient text-to-speech powered feature for readback of incoming messages.
Nuance-powered voice-enabled features on the phone include:
Genius Button: An easy-to-access button on the front of the new T-Mobile myTouch 3G Slide allowing the use of voice commands to control the phone. The button is enabled via Nuance’s intuitive speech technology that takes advantage of advancements in natural language understanding to allow users to say an entire command in just one shot – making it faster and easier to use their favorite applications and services. For example, just say:
§ “Call Alex Jones at Home.”
§ “Send Text to John Smith. I’ve got tickets to the Dodgers game tonight, you in?”
§ “Search for Recipes for Chocolate Cake.”
§ “Find Sushi Restaurants near me”
§ “Find Directions to 1 Wayside Drive, Burlington, Massachusetts.”
§ “Show me the Calendar”
§ And more.
The T-Mobile Genius Button is powered by the Nuance Voice Control platform, the industry’s first platform-agnostic mobile solution that seamlessly wraps embedded and connected speech capabilities into one amazing mobile experience. The result is faster and more accurate results that are optimized for the individual device.
Through the Genius Button users can also activate a feature that uses Nuance’s text-to-speech technology to read incoming email and text messages when reading them manually isn’t convenient. When the feature is enabled users are alerted when a message is received, and can advise verbally whether or not they want it read aloud, and if they’d like to respond.
Dragon Dictation: The myTouch 3G Slide features Dragon Dictation to easily and quickly speak your text up to five times faster in any text field, regardless of whether it’s an email, text message, calendar, Twitter application or Web browser. Dragon Dictation leverages the core speech technology found in the renowned PC-based Dragon NaturallySpeaking dictation software.
“In partnering with Nuance, a leader in speech technology, we’ve been able to create a new experience which makes it easier for our customers to stay connected with the important people in their lives,” said Andrew Sherrard, vice president, product development, T-Mobile USA. “Our consumers now have the ability to easily and quickly communicate with their favorite people through text and e-mail with the push of one button and the sound of their voice.”
Michael Thompson, senior vice president and General Manager, Nuance Mobile said, “We believe the T-Mobile MyTouch 3G Slide’s speech capabilities are perhaps the most innovative examples of how speech will elevate the mobile experience. T-Mobile is truly taking advantage of our connected and embedded natural language capabilities to bring an incredibly unique Android device and one-of-a-kind consumer experience to market. Now T-Mobile consumers have one-button, one-shot speech access for messaging, finding directions, accessing information on the Web – and it’s all available right out of the box.”
The MyTouch 3G Slide also features MyAccount 3.0 powered by Nuance Mobile Care, which provides users with the ability to easily access and manage account information directly from their phone. In fact, users can even open MyAccount right from the Genius Button, making it even faster and simpler for users to get real-time information about their account.
Availability
The T-Mobile myTouch 3G Slide is expected to be available in June, exclusively from T-Mobile USA in three colors- black, white or red. Customers can visit http://mytouch.t-mobile.com/ for more information.
Nuance’s open speech and predictive text solutions enable today’s leading wireless carriers and handset manufacturers to easily customize and quickly bring-to-market advanced speech and text capabilities for today’s fastest growing mobile platforms, such as Android. Only Nuance speech technology is based on the world renowned Dragon speech technologies used by millions of people on their PCs, mobile phones and other consumer electronics