TECH SPECIAL ...............DO MORE WITH VOICE

DO MORE WITH VOICE





Voice is quite underused on our smartphones. It's been getting way better at doing more stuff, recognising different accents and doing everything a lot faster too. Hitesh Raj Bhagat & Karan Bajaj show you how you can do more with voice on your existing smartphones -the only catch is that you need to know and memorise the correct voice commands

WITH GOOGLE NOW ON ANDROID

You can launch the Google voice assistant on most smartphones and Android wear devices by saying `Ok Google'. Or, you could just tap the microphone icon. The versatile voice assistant can do much more than just voice search or answering questions about weather, stocks and so on.

Smart Calling

Using the voice assistant to call a contact is commonly known. However, if you have added a relationship status of that contact (mom, dad, sister, brother) you can just say “call Dad“ and the voice assistant will automatically find and call the relevant contact. The same trick also works for contacts with nicknames.

Language Translation

One of the pain points while travelling can be language barriers. Even if the language is the same, pronunciations can be very different.When in doubt, launch the voice assistant on your phone and ask “How do you say in `language'“ For example, “How do you say water in Japanese?“

Location-Based Reminders

Since `Ok Google' works in conjunction with Google Now, you can use the service to quickly set location-based reminders. Just include the location or store name in your reminder. Like “ Remind me to buy slippers when I get to Select Citywalk“. When you visit the mall in question, your reminder will pop-up.

Follow up Questions

If you have asked a specific question to Google, you can also ask follow up questions.For instance, if you ask for “Movie review of Inception“, you can follow it up with “Who is the lead actor in it?“ -Google will automatically understand that you are talking about the same movie and answer accordingly.In the same way, if you ask “What's the weather like in Mumbai?“, you can follow that up with “How about Delhi?“.

Text With Other Apps

Ok Google also works with third party apps. If you're a heavy instant messaging user, you can use the assistant to send messages to a few compatible apps. Just say the following words: “Send a (app name) message to (contact)“ followed by your message. This command currently works with apps l i ke Vi b e r, W h a t s a p p, WeChat and Telegram.

WITH SIRI ON IOS

While Siri was originally an iOS application, the company that made it was acquired by Apple in 2010. Apple has been building it into their devices since 2011 (when it was launched for the iPhone 4S). Like any smart voice assistant, Siri adapts to you the more you use it, but it's also been learning new tricks over the years.

Contextual Awareness This ability came in with iOS 9

This ability came in with iOS 9 -let's say you were searching the web for a restaurant. You can ask Siri “When will it open?“ and Siri will realise that `it' means the restaurant you're looking for. Or if you get an email with some ac tion required, ask Siri to “remind me about this“.

Siri will figure out what app you were in when you asked and what you were looking at when it reminds you later, it'll open everything back to that same content.

Sort Through Photo Mess

Siri has access to your iDevice's photo album, so you can ask it to search for specific photos with a condition of time, place or album. For instance, you can ask “Show me photos taken on November 10 this year“ or “show me photos of my trip to Agra“. If you're an OS X user with `faces' set up in iPhoto (and a synced iOS device), you can also ask Siri to search for photos of a particular person.

Teach Siri Your Name

More often than not, our Indian names might be a bit of a tongue twister for Siri. When Siri calls you by name and doesn't say it correctly , say “That's not how you say Hitesh“. Then Siri will ask you how to say it correctly and after a couple of tries, it should be a lot closer to the real pronunciation. This is in addition to asking Siri to call you whatever you like.

Flip Coins and Roll Dice

Well not real ones anyway . But if you need a coin flipped and don't have a real one handy , just ask Siri. You can also use Siri to help play a board game when the dice goes missing. Just ask “roll a six sided dice“.

Change Settings & More

Rather than tap and swipe a few times to get where you want to, just ask. You can say “make the screen brighter“, “cancel all alarms“ and “Do not disturb“ when you want to silence everything. If you can't find an app icon, just say “open calculator“ or “Launch Kindle“. If your hands are not free, just say “read my new messages“. Finally , you can also use Google as a verb: say “Google the Museum of Natural History in London“

WITH CORTANA ON WINDOWS, ANDROID & IOS

With more and more Windows 10 devices coming in (computers and smartphones), Cortana is now accessible to more and more users in India. However, don't assume she is trailing behind Google or Apple when it comes to functionality. In fact, Cortana is also now officially available for Android and iOS devices.

Location-Based Reminders

Quite like Google, Cortana can set location-based reminders for Windows 10 devices. You just have to speak out the reminder and the name of the location. The next time you visit that place, Cortana will show you the reminder once it recognizes your location.

Person-Based Reminders

This is something missing from both Google and Apple assistants. You can set Cortana to remind you of a certain topic when you speak to particular contact. When you call the tagged person, the reminder will pop-up on the screen.

Person Recognition

Cortana comes with builtin voice recognition. This helps it create a personal voice recognition of your particular voice. This way only voice commands said by you are acted upon faster and other commands are ignored.

ET16DEC15