speech recognition

Taking Dictation

Walt Mossberg in Mossberg’s Mailbox on April 24 at 2:47 pm PT

Walt answers readers’ questions on smartphones’ dictation apps.

AT&T Aims to Avoid Opening Can of Worms as It Opens Up Its Network

Ina Fried in Mobile on April 19 at 10:35 am PT

Today’s cellphones are treasure troves of useful information that could speed all manner of mundane tasks. But any opening-up of that data is filled with questions, not all of which are technical.

Amazon Has Acquired Yap, the Closest Thing to a Siri Clone It Can Find

Tricia Duryee in Commerce on November 9, 2011 at 2:34 pm PT

There are a lot of similarities between Amazon and Apple. The secrecy, the dedication to the consumer, the focus on devices and digital media, and now this: Siri.

Laryngitis Aside, Why Siri Is a Voice to Be Reckoned With

Ina Fried in Mobile on November 7, 2011 at 4:00 am PT

Siri may still be working to find her voice, but Apple’s young assistant shows a ton of promise.

Android Chief Says Your Phone Should Not Be Your Assistant

Ina Fried in AsiaD on October 19, 2011 at 11:30 am PT

In an interview, Rubin says that his philosophy is that a phone should be a tool for connecting people to each other, not for replacing human interaction.

Will Apple’s Siri Make Talking to Your Phone Seem Normal?

Ina Fried in Mobile on October 5, 2011 at 2:25 pm PT

Voice recognition has been common on cellphones since the 1990s, but capabilities have been limited, as has accuracy. Is Siri ready to allow speech techology to turn a corner?

Done With Silly Game Shows, IBM's Watson Finds a Job

Arik Hesseldahl in Enterprise on February 17, 2011 at 7:45 am PT

Having licked the puny humans on TV games shows, the Watson supercomputer, or at least one like it, will be put to work on ways to help doctors make better decisions.

Meet Flipboard: Mike McCue Talks About Stealth "Social Magazine" Start-Up That Just Nabbed $10.5 Million in Funding

Kara Swisher in News on July 20, 2010 at 8:56 pm PT

Say hello to an innovative new social magazine concept called Flipboard, which is attempting to make the social networking universe more accessible, consumable and, perhaps most importantly, visually arresting via a rich app on the Apple iPad. Co-founded by longtime Silicon Valley entrepreneur Mike McCue and former Apple iPhone engineer Evan Doll in January, Flipboard decloaked itself tonight, announcing both a $10.5 million funding from top Silicon Valley power players and also the acquisition of Ellerdale, a relevancy search engine for the real-time Web.

An iPhone 4 Review Roundup

John Paczkowski in Mobile on June 22, 2010 at 3:09 pm PT

“This is really hot,” Apple CEO Steve Jobs said of the iPhone 4 when he unveiled it at the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference earlier this month. And the pundits seem to agree. The first reviews of the device began rolling in Tuesday afternoon and they are largely glowing. After the jump, excerpts from a few of them.

Voices

A Voicemail Transcription Scandal in Britain

Marisa Taylor, Tech Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on July 24, 2009 at 7:33 am PT

SpinVox, a British company that converts voicemails into text with speech recognition technology, has been accused by the BBC of using humans at call centers to manually conduct the majority of the translations.