We finally feel a part of the cell phone revolution as more phones come out with keyboards, more people use SMS, and more apps become available to help us communicate through text. Then I read an article in the local newspaper that keyboard phones might become obsolete thanks to voice recognition technology for cell phones.
Google and Vlingo have applications that let you commandeer your phone, search the internet, and save on typing. According to the writer, they perform almost flawlessly unless he is in an area with a lot of noise. These applications are available only for iPhone and BlackBerrys.
I would think voice recognition won’t take over 100% of the time for one reason: noise. If you’re in a quiet area or in a meeting, you won’t want to speak commands.
Should this technology advance enough to separate background noise from your voice — then we could be in trouble. In this case, cell phone manufacturers may cut keyboards for good and go with touch screen for times when you can’t speak.
On a brighter note, I’m grateful Google Mail has added SMS capabilities to its Google Chat application. My daughter relies on texting for communicating with me and I don’t have my BlackBerry with me when I am at home. So now I can text her from Gmail.
2 comments
What?!? You mean I can text someone from my gmail?
How?!
I’ll look that up! Thank you for sharing this info 🙂
-Ben
Yes!
First, make sure you have SMS enabled in Gmail. Go to Settings > Labs tab. Text Messaging (SMS) Chat is near the bottom.
In the contact box on the sidebar, enter the contact’s name (if not already showing in chat list). With the contact selected and the pop up context menu showing, select video and more then Send SMS.
It’ll have you enter a mobile number. Once done, a chat box pops up.