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MS VoiceCommand and Voice Dialer Software Experience

I have spent some time looking at various shareware and commercial voice dialer apps this week.
I was really impressed with the specification of MS VoiceCommand No training required, context dependent actions (ie you say "Call So and So" and it will dial immediately if there is only one number, or will say "Mobile or Work?" if there is ambiguity, or you can just say"Call So and So at Work" and off it goes. Terrific.
Except it doesn't work on the XDA. Can't see why - it hears something (so "Show Calendar", "Help", "Yes" etc. work) but does not have enough mic sensitivity to do name recognition. This is so whether you hold the XDA 1 inch or 18 inches from your mouth, whether AGC is on or off.
So for a quarter of the cost I have bought NeuVoice Dialer, which works pretty well. Problems? Needs to be trained, no context dependency, so you either have to associate a specific number (Work, Mobile etc) with a voice tag, or you have to recognise the name first, the specific tag second, which means pressing the action button twice. Nause. Also not very easy in the car w/o a hands-free profile, which is what we are all after, isn't it?
So are my experiences unique? Would love to hear!

I'm using Voice Command with XDA II and it works great. How many processes are you running? I found that if you get close to the 32 process max then it doesnt work as well (see other posts in this forum about max processes). At 26 processes no problem.

Only two or three!! It is really strange - I can't see why it works so much worse than NeuVoice. Not noticed any particular probs with the phone either , so I don't think that the microphone itself is faulty, although it could be that.
How well is VOice Command working really? How many contacts do you have and does it really discrimate? I have about 500 contacts+.
Cheers

Stephen,
I doubt you only have 2 or 3 processes running, you mean applications visible through the memory option in settings. You need a third party tool like Taskmanager (available on Handango) to see the processes running (a bit like the Windows taskmanager) I have 500+ contacts and Voice Command really does a great job of discriminating between them. Try the stereo headset that comes in the box to rule out any microsphone issues. Also I run Voice Command with default settings, I didnt mess with the AGC Microsphone settings at all.

Out of the programs I tried for VoiceDialing, I found Fonix VoiceDial was the most accurate (using XDA 1)

Tried with the stereo lead - very, very slightly better, but no way is this stuff usable.
I'm pretty sure there is an architecture issue here - the fact that the AGC cannot be manually set, strange behaviour using teh recorder during phone calls etc. VoiceCommand may be great, but it don't work too well on my XDA2. Maybe I have a funny voice!!!
Cheers

XDAII - MS Voice Command experience
I am using MS VC with i-MATE for already several months and I have over 700 contacts...
Based on my experience - try to reinstall MS Voice Command - some times it works better.... Also do not speak to loud; do not keep it very close to your mouth. It works fine even if it is on a console between sits and I am driving (looking straight on the road).
And yes, you should check number of process running... http://www.scarybearsoftware.com/ppc_cn_overview.html - would be the best bet...
Good luck.
Paul

stephen_oliver said:
I'm pretty sure there is an architecture issue here - the fact that the AGC cannot be manually set, strange behaviour using teh recorder during phone calls etc. VoiceCommand may be great, but it don't work too well on my XDA2. Maybe I have a funny voice!!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Don't forget, you need to speak with an American accent it you want this thing understand you...!

Yes, that has improved it - 135 notifications.
Not sure how to check active processes - got any suggestions on utilities?
I can now get recognition about 60-70% of the time. Sadly it still has problems with my "Yes"!! Maybe I should coach my voice to sound more patient :?
Thanks for the advice ...

How do you BUY VoiceCommand?? Won;t accept non-US addresses!!!!

As far as I know you can get trial for one or several days.
As per "buy it" I am not sure how you can do that not from states or Canada.
About YES - possibility that you just saying it too soon. Try pause for 1,5 2 seconds and after repeat if necessary.

Thanks - I've discovered Handandgo/uk so I'm all set now.
Cheers everyone!

Hate to say this but I tried Voice Command and gave up!
Sometimes it got it right, but for most of the time it got it wrong. I think I had better results when I tried an American Accent with a Scouse Accent (Livererpudlian for our international fans), but even then it was a burger less than a MacDonalds.
I seemed to think it was down to the XDA II only having AGC on and off choices and not a manual audio gain setting. I did try it with both the free version and the *cough* cracked version (for evaluation purposes of course) to little success. Saying that, didn't have much success with Via Voice either.

Anybody willing to "share" this software.... long term.. hehehehe
e-mail me at [email protected]

fella's please persit with and you will be rewarded with porbably the best voice recognition program available....
i nearly gave up but i'am glad i did'nt
It helped me going to the website and reading the help files and watching the demostration video...
Zetex

MS Voice Command and Fonix
G'day Guys,
I've persisted with MS Voice Command and agree with the previous posts.. If you've got your alerts sorted out and processes running low, it's a REALLY good package...
The Fonix VoiceDial and Voice Commander has excellent potential but I couldn't get the accuracy up and the volume was lousy - Crackly and distorted.. So I'm sticking with MS VC...
Still can't get "DIAL 1 2 3 4" etc. working AT ALL.. It's ALWAYS wrong?!?! But "Call CONTACT NAME" is consistently excellent.. So that's all I need it for!
Beats the heck out of having accidents on the road while trying to stylus the iMate!!!!
P.S. For the SmartPhone, Fonix VoiceDial is absolutely brilliant - I've also used that and it's consistently good.. Just a shame that there seems to be an issue with the iMate PDA (O2 XDA II) hardware and Fonix VoiceDial...
Cheers
Andy

Voice Command in Oz
Andy,
How did you get VC in Oz?. I have used the trial version and found it great (after learning to americanise my "strine"), but non US addresses just can't download. I am happy to pay for my programs, but if MS don't want my money...
Che?

Voice Command in Oz
Andy,
How did you get VC in Oz?. I have used the trial version and found it great (after learning to americanise my "strine"), but non US addresses just can't download. I am happy to pay for my programs, but if MS don't want my money...
Che?

usa purchase
Its very simple if you are only purchasing a software download - Give your real email address but gìve any usa mail address that you can see on packaging or from the web and the sale will go through! important the ZIP Code must be real

Neuvoice for XDA II
Thanks for that Sam. In the meantime, I have tried Neuvoice, and have actually found it is a better product. Apart from the need to train it, the recognition is better and I don't have to alter my accent

Speech Recognition API for Windows Mobile 6.1?

I've started developing an application that allows the user to compose and send an email completely hands-free... by voice command only.
However I'm having trouble finding a decent, open source (free) speech recognition (speech-to-text) engine / API to use.
Does anyone know of one? I tried PocketSphinx but had trouble compiling it in Windows using VS2008.
I'm wondering what API the Windows Live Search app uses? Its speech recognition capabilities are already decent, and if it's included with Windows Mobile or .NET Compact Framework 3.5 or Windows Mobile 6.1 itself, then I would prefer to use that. But I'm having trouble determining if this speech recognition is available to 3rd-party developers and, if so, how to interface with it.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!

OMG I hate timeouts lol
So I had this nice long post about how I thought it might be one of three things and I whipped out my omnia and disconnected the network and blah blah.
When I hit post, I got a not logged in timeout.
So here's the short of it:
It uses a server, that's probably related to UC aka Office Communications Server aka Speech Server 2007... you can get to it (and all the Microsoft Speech technologies, including Voice Command) here:
http://www.microsoft.com/speech/speech2007/default.mspx
A little more searching lead me to read the MSDN Channel 9 blog on said subject:
http://blogs.msdn.com/speech/archiv...h-for-mobile-now-with-speech-recognition.aspx
which states:
"The speech recognition functionality for the application doesn't actually sit on the Windows Mobile phone. Instead, the phone takes your speech input, sends it to a server, the server does it's recognition magic, and sends the results back to the phone. "

Speech Server 2007
Thanks for the reply MerlinJim... sucks about the timeout! That's why on a long post I always copy the text to the clipboard... that way if it times out I can just paste it in! (It's happened to me too many times for me to not do that now!)
Yeah I've looked at Speech Server 2007 as well... and I was thinking that maybe Live Search offloaded the speech recognition to a server. There's a little lag between what you say and when it guesses what you said.
I guess something like that would work. If you're writing an email then you need an Internet connection, and so sending the voice data to a speech server would be plausible. The only downside would be if it used up a lot of data transfer/bandwidth, and the user was on metered bandwidth.
The lag would be a bit of a drawback, because if the Speech Server guessed incorrectly what you said, but you kept talking (due to the processing lag), then you would have to go back and correct what you had said.
And also sometimes the Live Maps speech recognition is WAY off. Like I'll say "1 Jefferson Parkway" and it will come back with something like "Did you say 'Parkstone Apartments?'"
It's also speaker-independent, so you don't do any training. I would rather train an app to recognize my voice specifically, because I would be the only user of it.
But it may be my only solution for right now. Thanks for the info! I was beginning to think that no one knew the answer.

acrosser said:
Thanks for the reply MerlinJim... sucks about the timeout! That's why on a long post I always copy the text to the clipboard... that way if it times out I can just paste it in! (It's happened to me too many times for me to not do that now!)
Yeah I've looked at Speech Server 2007 as well... and I was thinking that maybe Live Search offloaded the speech recognition to a server. There's a little lag between what you say and when it guesses what you said.
I guess something like that would work. If you're writing an email then you need an Internet connection, and so sending the voice data to a speech server would be plausible. The only downside would be if it used up a lot of data transfer/bandwidth, and the user was on metered bandwidth.
The lag would be a bit of a drawback, because if the Speech Server guessed incorrectly what you said, but you kept talking (due to the processing lag), then you would have to go back and correct what you had said.
And also sometimes the Live Maps speech recognition is WAY off. Like I'll say "1 Jefferson Parkway" and it will come back with something like "Did you say 'Parkstone Apartments?'"
It's also speaker-independent, so you don't do any training. I would rather train an app to recognize my voice specifically, because I would be the only user of it.
But it may be my only solution for right now. Thanks for the info! I was beginning to think that no one knew the answer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
perhaps, but there IS a speech application loaded ON a Windows Mobile 6.1 which has text-to-speech capabilities and speech recognition
(my Blackjack II loaded with Wm6.1 has this capability)
can't find any API to use it though... only way to activate this TTS capability is to
1) sms announcing
2) appointment announcing
3) call announcing
no actual program to do TTS...

Any progress on this or any other speech-to-text program? I'm really interested in finding one.
Wouldn't mind being a beta tester, either.

*Double Post*
DELETE

real voice over wifi

I many forums, people say that nothing is developed for voip. There are several solutions, but they all channel the voip over the GSM/voice channel (iSkoop, Skype lite). See also: http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/Android+VOIP
Obviously we get double charges: 1) we pay the VOIP fee and 2) the minutes.
So my questions:
1) Is there any hardware issue that would compromise voip?
2) If not what is the state of the development? Is there anything in the horizon?
3) Since the market place is not the only way of distributing content for Android, how could TMo/Google avoid independent developer to create a "real" voip application?
4) How hard would it be given what is available in terms of development?

voip
i use skype, and i have found out a way to get around all the fees....
so.. here it is.
setup skype, and i pay yearly, then skype dials the same number ever time, so i put that number in myfavs. ta-da!

I use UMA over wifi. There are two ways of doing it with T-Mo, one is $9.99 for unlimited ([email protected]), and the other way is just making calls while connected to wifi. That way uses your minutes, but doesn't have a monthly fee.
Unfortunately the G1 isn't UMA enabled, so I got a cheap Samsung for UMA calling.

I love the internet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5Igo7brlRo
Release date in May. Cheers everyone, real voice over Wifi is coming!!!!

Since I am at it, here's the link to the company that ported mjsip to android:
http://blog.roychowdhury.org/2008/03/10/we-have-sip-working-on-android/
Cheers

aad4321 said:
will it work over 3g/edge?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, that's a very good question. I think the guys in the vid used only wifi (from what they say).
I see one big problem with VOIP over 3G: carriers. They will never want you to use Voip on the go because this would hack their major cash flow (the GSM fees).
For voice over WIFI, that may be less of a problem. If you look at Skype on the iPhone, you can give a call over wifi without using your minutes. In other words, Skype received the blessings from ATT and Apple. Let's hope T-Mo blesses all of us too!

Note to gingerbread devs

First of all many thanks to all the devs.. They have really made owning this device a pleasure and joy..
I have been using all different roms from Froyo to Gingerbread.. Even though most Gingerbread Roms are not as stable as Froyo Roms, the main attractive feature for me in Gingerbread is the built in SIP stack for voip/ internet calling. I have been testing the Gtab within this environment through an asterisk and variuos other IP pbxes. Let me tell you this is one killer feature when it is configured right.
So the request to Devs is this that as you guys are trying to optimize the roms by pulling phone apks out, kindly keep in mind the internet calling feature which unfortunately becomes inaccessible when the dialer apk is removed.. The only rom so far that works great with this feature is the "SD card paradigm modified CM7 rom" by Roebeet.. So please devs, if there is a way to keep this feature in, please do so... It is also possible to have video conferencing over your own SIP server.. And no none of the market solutions including sipdroid are as elegant as the built in Gingerbread stack. The Gtab in the Dock makes an awesome Desk speaker phone logged into the SIP server
What is even more sad is that it appears this feature was also pulled from Honey comb.
Thank you for your consideration as you Devs continue to refine Gingerbread.
PEACE!

Very interesting reason to keep those APKs in. Maybe they will.
Also, this should be in General or Q&A. It'll be moved, but don't worry, the devs will know about it.

Well I think that you can still optimize and pull some of the phone and cell signal processing apks out since we don't have a 3G modem in the G Tablet. The SIP stack for Internet Calling is completely different apks but both standard Cell Phone APks and the Internet calling use the common dialer... Iam not a dev but know enough about SIP and voip to know that these calls are purely over a data network (WIFI in the case of the GTAB) and therefore don't use any of the other apks that are tied in to 3G modem functionality. The key is to leave the microphone and speaker phone ringer functionality within the dialer..
I humbly submit to the Devs for their experience in figuring out how to leave the SIP stack functionality with the dialer. I may have some of my understanding of how the phone apks are working within android wrong.
Cheers!
TA

Mobile-web-based text-messaging client/reader

I have a rather interesting idea, and I thought to post it here. I apologize if there is a more appropriate location for this thread, but, as I am new to XDA-Dev, I hope this will be forgiven, and someone could perhaps correct my mistake and move it or tell me what the proper thread location would be.
Also, as a recently-graduated high school student, I have plenty of free time before I start college, wherein I plan on learning a few programming languages, starting with Java, so I can develop for Android and iOS. This means that here at XDA-Dev, I'll hopefully soon become a very active user.
Now that the formalities are out of the way, I'll move on to my idea.
My phone is a Samsung Replenish(SPH-M580), which is a 600Mhz ARMv6, with 512M of RAM, EV-DO Sprint data network that saves me $10 monthly(Why I own it). The drawback to this phone is that even though it has multi-touch, the screen is a tiny 240*320 pixels. Now, I love Android, due to how open it is, but I have an Android-based phone and an iPod Touch 3rd Generation for my music needs(32GB).
When I'm at home, I don't touch my phone near as often as I do my iPod, and when I'm sitting on the couch browsing the web on my iPod, I don't want to have to keep switching to my phone. So my idea is this(And please, tell me if something has been made): If you can have replacement SMS clients such as Handcent and GO, then it should be possible to have an app on your phone that gives you access to your text messages in a browser-- But not just desktop PC browsers(Such as the access given by WebKey or PDA-net), in other mobile browsers, such as Opera Mobile, mobile Safari, etc.
I know it is possible, given the ease of using something like Handcent SMS, and I'm sure it would need root elevation unless there's a good userspace web server, but the question is, has it been done? If not, I'd like to try to get some help in the community with making it.
Sorry for the horrendously long post, but I think it's a good idea that should be attempted, at least.

As a Sprint user
I am also a Sprint user and I'd like to inform you of Sprint's great deal with Google Voice. (As a new user I can't post links so try Google for "Google Voice")
This effectively gives all Sprint users the ability to text via Web or any device with a Google Voice app at no additional cost.

I doubt that it's optimized for mobile browsers of small devices, but MightyText does work on many browsers. If you're ambitious enough, I'm sure you could write a script to optimize the layout yourself for a small device like an iPod. You might want to try downloading the MightyText app (listed as "Free Texting <-> PC SMS Messaging" on the market for some reason) and then going to "mightytext.net/app" on your iPod and seeing how it looks.

Alright, I tried out MightyText, and in the Mobile Safari app, MightyText looks like a scaled down desktop website. It would be cool if they added a Mobile view as well, but so far, it doesn't seem so.

mike12489 said:
I doubt that it's optimized for mobile browsers of small devices, but MightyText does work on many browsers. If you're ambitious enough, I'm sure you could write a script to optimize the layout yourself for a small device like an iPod. You might want to try downloading the MightyText app (listed as "Free Texting <-> PC SMS Messaging" on the market for some reason) and then going to "mightytext.net/app" on your iPod and seeing how it looks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The mobile site for Google Voice is optimized for Mobile viewing. Also the Google Voice app is much better than MightyText as it integrates very tightly with your phone number.

legacyweapon said:
The mobile site for Google Voice is optimized for Mobile viewing. Also the Google Voice app is much better than MightyText as it integrates very tightly with your phone number.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't like the Google Voice app's way of doing things. I don't like that there's not an option to disable notifications from the Google Voice app itself.