Gearfuse

Google today announced Google Voice, an improved version of the GrandCentral service it’s been offering since acquiring the company back in 2006. Before you jump for joy, realize that yes, there is a wait list for invitations and people who signed up for GrandCentral will get first dibs. Among some of the new features Google will be rolling out with Voice include voicemail transcripts, Goog-411 integration and of course, the ability to use one number to ring all your phones.

I like where this is going. It shows a new-found commitment from Google to its GrandCentral purchase. Now if only my damn invite would come!

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Typing, “hot horny girls go wild in a jacuzzi,” can be difficult on an iPhone; even with that QWERTY keyboard. By Friday, Apple hopes to remedy this problem by releasing Google’s new voice recognition application in the iTunes store.

Once you have the app, you can forget about typing. Just say out loud, “Where can I find the Chicks With Dicks Vol. 2 DVD in New York City?” and the sound will be converted to a digital file to be sent through Google’s servers. This is when the magic happens. When the software tries to determine the words spoken and pass them along to the Google search engine. It won’t be long until you have every smutty video store’s location in New York.

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Alright! Gmail is no longer just providing the most convenient email and chat service on the Internet, it’s now launching voice and video chat right in the browser. Now you’ll be able to speak visually to your favorite foreign exchange students with the click of a button.

It’s simple to set up, too. All you’ve got to do is download and install the voice and video plugin. Then, you’ll be on your way selling your body for cash as Internet onlookers watch to see how much you can fit in — nevermind.

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When you can’t use a mouse because of too much Guitar Hero, don’t fret; alternative means of controlling your computer’s cursor are just over the horizon. The University of Washington is developing a vocally controlled mouse interface that’s completely hands free!

Similar to speech recognition that aids in typing, the vocal joystick makes using a mouse as simple as humming mantras in front of your computer. Using different vowels and sounds, the vocal joystick is able to create cursor motion and clicking functions as if you were using an ordinary mouse. However, playing Minesweeper is still a pain in the ass.

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First, it was digitally altering the fireworks. Now those commie bastards are at it again! According to The Telegraph, the little 9-year-old girl in the red dress than sung “Hymn to the Motherland” during the opening ceremony, Lin Miaoke, is nothing more than a puppet. Turns out a small girl with “buck teeth” called Yang Peiyi was hitting all the notes backstage while the bitch in the red dress danced around.

At the last moment a member of the Chinese politburo who was watching a rehearsal pronounced that the winner, a girl called Yang Peiyi, might have a perfect voice but was unsuited to the lead role because of her buck teeth.

So, on the night, while a pre-recording of Yang Peiyi singing was played, Lin Miaoke, who has already featured in television advertisements, was seen but not heard.

“This was a last-minute question, a choice we had to make,” the ceremony’s musical designer, Chen Qigang, said. “Our rehearsals had already been vetted several times – they were all very strict. When we had the dress rehearsals, there were spectators from various divisions, including above all a member of the politburo who gave us his verdict: we had to make the swap.”

Seriously. Way to go, China. Your reputation is getting more and more sour by the minute. I fear that by the end of the Olympics, you’ll have rendered gold medals for every Chinese athlete using computer graphics.

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Apparently, eco-friendly WiFi routers aren’t the only thing D-Link is in to. The FuChat, as it so appropriately named, is a cordless phone capable of making internet and land-line phone calls. That’s not all, this phone also has the function to detect changes of tone in a person’s voice and changes in body temperature, alerting the user of their current emotional state through an emoticon on the phone’s exterior, almost like the Robometer. The phone is made up of biodegradable plastic (that’s good for the environment, folks).

We can only imagine tampering with this phone to make it respond to emotions via audio samples. “You’re being an emotional cunt” and “quit your whining, sissy” are some examples of responses I’d love to see this phone tell its user. Anger management problems? This is the phone for you.
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When I was a kid I must have subconsciously wanted to become a businessman or something along those lines. At least I knew I wanted to use the phone a lot. I remember playing with my fake phone for hours, and then when I wasn’t playing with my fake phone, I’d be holding two fingers up to the side of my head, pretending my hand was a phone. Who was I talking to anyway?

The Handphone concept literally takes your hand, throws a few wires and doodads on your fingers, and turns your fingers into a portable cellphone device. The navigation and control of the phone is done using natural gestures, as well as including voice commands. One thing we’ll say is that the LCD display on this device is in desperate need of an upgrade. (more…)

Most GPS units come with a stock robotic voice which dictates directions to you in an awkward and mispronounced fashion. YourPND is a service which allows you to record your own voice, and than download the audio files to use for your GPS device.

So far, the service only works for TomTom devices, but so many people who use GPS already use TomTom anyway. Garmin, Mio, and MyGuide are expected for the future. It’s cool because now I can hear the voice of the one person I truly love all of the time. I have such a sweet tenor tone and a face made for radio. It would be a shame to let my voice go to waste. — Andrew Dobrow 

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Okay this is nothing new really, we all have remote controllers at home, some of us are lucky enough to have a home network hooked up to all appliances so that you can control the microwave in your kitchen all the way from your neighbor’s house.

Fuji Housing is showcasing this new household robot at their showrooms in Osaka. The teddybear-ish Chapit is actually smarter than it looks. The voice-recognition capability allows the Chapit to understand when you shout at it (up to 10,000 different commands), hook it up to your home network then you will have an electronic slave to turn your lights on and off (video), switch channels and get on to the in-ter-neto (video). The built-in camera allows you to do video conferencing with your friends on webcam or on 3G video-calls, you can also check your hair on the screen just before leaving the house (video).

The Chapit is due to launch in 2008, with a lot more added features comparing to the recent model, price is projected to be around $1700. –Sam Chan

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Panasonic Japan has announced today the release of 2 professional IC voice recorders that support for the first time a password security system that prevents unauthorized access to your recordings. Even when transferred to a computer, others will not be able to listen to it unless they have the program, the password or they’re using your computer at first place. Users will be locking the audio file by tying in a password using the jogdial at the side of the voice recorder. The more advaned modle US470 will also support Panasonic’s Zoom Microphone technology that diverts the voice reception towards the direction of the speaker, this works the best when you are sittng at the corner of a lecture all the way at the back, or when you are jumping behind all those tall camera men trying to record the celebrity interview done in the middle of the crowd. The battery can last up to 167hours and 40 minutes on AAA batteries. Price is between $100 and $130 depending on which model you get. — Sam Chan

Press release [Panasonic Japan]