Nuance Launches Dragon Mobile Assistant for Android
Nuance Communications has announced the beta availability of Dragon Mobile Assistant for Android, expanding the natural language understanding and artificial intelligence capabilities first showcased in the Dragon Go! application.
"This [product] leverages off of [the] Dragon Go! product, another direct-to-consumer product," says Dave Grannan, vice president of the direct-to-consumer division of Nuance. "Consumers really loved that aspect and [the ability] to say what they wanted to in a natural way. The natural language barrier we are breaking is the fact that when you are speaking [it is] in a unconstrained way."
The Dragon Mobile Assistant sends texts, makes calls, sets appointments, and delivers direct access to open content on the mobile Web from more than 200 content providers.
For example, users can say:
- "Tell Natalie,'I'm on the way to the office and will grab you a Starbucks.'"
- "Schedule a meeting for 2 p.m. tomorrow with John Smith."
- "Get directions to the New England Aquarium."
- "How's the weather look this week?"
- "Send out a new tweet—I can't believe that finish to the game!"
Dragon also offers a hands-free personal assistant experience. Simply wake up Dragon by saying, "Hi, Dragon." Or, listen to inbound text messages in Driver Mode. Dragon is available in beta for free in English on Google Play in the US, supporting Android Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0) and above, with expanded availability and new features planned before the end of 2012.
"We are excited to get user feedback," Grannan says. "We believe that this is an innovative platform and offers things that haven't been done much by various players in the market. Some of the key features are natural language understanding, a beautiful user interface design, an intuitive user interface, and accessibility of the system—these aspects are novel things in the market. We hope to put our stake in the sand there."
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