IDF 2012: Ultrabooks to get voice recognition by next month
- — 12 September, 2012 05:36
Intel has announced that the Dell XPS 13 will be the first Ultrabook certified to run its Nuance Dragon-based voice recognition software, Dragon Assist.
The chip vendor said it will be working very closely with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to make sure that the technology is of "acceptable quality" for end users and hopes to roll it out to other manufacturers soon.
The voice-activated technology was demonstrated at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco and was shown to be useful for Internet searches as well as more contextual searching. It will also have deep social networking integration, allowing you to share content over social platforms such as Twitter using voice commands.
In its pre-planned demo, Intel also showed that the technology can be used effectively to recognise words that are difficult to pronounce.
The voice recognition software won't be sold as a retail package, but will instead be offered only on Ultrabooks that pass Nuance's tests as being able to run the application acceptably. Systems that qualify will have a link to download the software.
The Nuance partnership for voice control is just one part of the direction Intel is taking in making Ultrabooks a more interactive experience. Intel is championing a more intuitive computing environment with Ultrabooks, which, in addition to voice control, includes touch, gestures (fingers, not just hands), in addition to more convenient connectivity features, such as near-field communications (NFC).
The author of this article attended IDF as a guest of Intel.
