Click here to view the embedded video.

Verizon’s new Father’s Day commercial that popped up over the weekend is a fine reminder that Google Voice Search is there to help you in times of need. When your child adopts a dangerous pet, baseballs are thrown through windows, a kid puts the wrong dish soap in the dishwasher, superglue is used to help someone palm a basketball, or when your daughter gets her little heart crushed by a boy, you can search for help.

I can’t tell you how many times recently that I’ve pulled out Google Voice Search to find things. If my friends and I can’t remember anything from an actor’s name to movies they were in to how many different NBA teams Dr. J played for, Google Search can get you there quicker than any other method. I forget to use it every so often, but lately it has become a part of my everyday life.

Oh, the ad was also to show off the current “Free” deal that VZW is running for the RAZR M in blue, should you be interested.

Are you using Voice Search regularly or do you forget about it?

Verizon Reminds Us That Google Voice Search Can Solve All Your Problems is a post from: Droid Life

This morning, Google announced that they will now display nutritional information from the Knowledge Graph in Google Search. Once live, you should find “extensive nutrition information for over 1,000 fruits, vegetables, meats and meals in search,” from both the web and your mobile device. As you can see in the images included in this post, you should be able to ask your device specific nutrition questions and have it respond back to you. When you ask Google “how many carbs are in corn?” it should respond while also providing a card with quick information, much like you see with other Google voice searches.

The service will launch in English first and will rollout out in the U.S. only over the next 10 days. 

Via:  Inside Search

Google Introduces Nutrition Information to Search is a post from: Droid Life

Notif, one of our favorite apps of the last year because of its simple yet powerful note taking abilities, that we’ve already written up a couple of times, received a new feature last night thanks to a recent update. In Google Voice Search, as you tell Google to begin a “note to self…,” Notif (pro version only) will show up as one of the options after you have spoken your note. Should you choose Notif, your spoken note will then appear as all Notifs do, in the notification bar until you swipe it away. 

For those not familiar with Notif, think of it as the easiest way to create a quick note, list or image reminder that you’ll want to tackle later on in your day. It’s not a traditional note taking app in the sense that you have this massive list of notes to categorize and weed through over time. Notif is all about now or the very near future. You create a list or note and it appears immediately in your notification bar. The notifications can expand or shrink, you can set priority levels, add special icons, make items ongoing notifications, and even voice dictate notes from within the app.

There are pro and free versions available, but as one would expect, all of the new features go pro.

Play Link ($0.99)

Notif Pro Adds “Note to Self…” Voice Search Action is a post from: Droid Life

Click here to view the embedded video.

We haven’t posted a DROID commercial in a while, but a new clip for the RAZR MAXX HD surfaced this morning looking more like the original DROID campaign than anything we have seen in some time, and thought we’d share. Plus, anything is better than the desert bedroom explosion spot, right? Not sure this fully redeems the DROID brand after that ridiculousness, but it can’t hurt.

In this spot, instead of selling the new powerful Google Voice Search, Verizon has decided to brand it with their own term called, “DROID recognition.” Yes, that’s a silly word play on the phrase “voice recognition.” Come on, we should be able to do better than this.

New DROID RAZR MAXX HD Commercial Touts “DROID Recognition” is a post from: Droid Life

With the newest Google Now update, Google built in a new Voice Action that allows you to scan barcodes with your camera. All you have to say is, “Scan barcode” after hitting the voice search button. But if the voice search button isn’t handy or you don’t want to speak out loud to your phone, you can access it another way.

If you open Google Now, scroll to the bottom and hit the 3-dotted menu button in the right corner. As long as you have updated your Google Now, you should see a new option that says “Search with camera.” Tap that, and find something to search for with your camera.

So far, I’ve had good luck snapping photos of text, but logos or objects, not so much. Give it a shot!

Cheers Nishant!

Tip: Search With Your Camera in New Google Now is a post from: Droid Life

With today’s update to Google Now, we have more than 25 cards that can pop up and show us information depending on our location, recent searches, or location. It can even pull from our Gmail inboxes to track packages, remind us of hotel or restaurant reservations, and make sure we get to our flight on time. As a Jelly Bean user, it’s probably my favorite feature, and one that I’m glad more and more phones are now taking advantage, thanks to recent updates.

Below, and thanks to Google Support, we have the entire list of Google Now cards that can pop up on your device. Since many of us won’t have the opportunity to see some of these, we thought we’d share. 

Activity Summary (Walking and Biking)

Birthdays

Events

Flights

Gmail:  Boarding Pass

Gmail:  Events

Gmail: Movies

Gmail:  Flights

Gmail:  Hotels

Gmail:  Restaurants

Gmail:  Package Tracking

Movies

News

Next Meeting

Photo Spot Nearby

Places

Public Alerts

Public Transit

Real Estate

Research Topics

Sports

Stocks

Traffic

Travel:  Currency

Travel:  Attractions Nearby

Travel:  Time Back Home

Travel:  Translate

Weather

Via:  Google Support

Cheers Grady!

Google Now Cards – The Complete List is a post from: Droid Life

A major Google Search update just hit the Google Play store for devices running Android 4.1+ (Jelly Bean). The update introduces a handful of new cards for Google Now along with some new voice actions. You will now see Now cards for events happening nearby, suggestions to help with research, boarding passes (United only for now), weather for upcoming travel destinations, and more. On the voice actions side of things, you can tell your phone to post to Google+, ask what song is playing, and have your phone to scan a barcode.

Go grab it! 

New cards:

• Events nearby
• Suggestions to help with your research
• Boarding passes from Gmail (United only, more to come)
• Search by camera when at museums or shops
• Weather at upcoming travel destinations
• Approximate monthly summary of walking and biking activity

New voice actions:

• Post to Google+
• Say “What’s this song?” to find the song you hear
• Say “Scan a barcode” to find product info

Play Link

Cheers Grady!

Google Search Receives Update: New Google Now Cards and Voice Actions Included is a post from: Droid Life

Utter!, a voice actions Android app that we covered months ago, went into beta today, and then entered the Google Play store. While we normally roll our eyes at the never-ending string of Siri knock-off style apps that have come to our favorite mobile platform, Utter! is quite different. It’s creator had one focus – to make Utter! “super functional and fast.” 

After playing with it for a few minutes, the “super functional” part has clearly been nailed. There are more voice actions that can be completed with Utter! than any other app I’ve seen thus far. And trust me, we see them all, even the apps that have paid PR teams to help promote the 6 actions that their app can barely complete.

Utter! has literally hundreds of actions, will address you in a manner that you choose (ex: “Yo, Kellen!”), and has an exhaustive list of “coming soon” features that will surely grab your attention.

To get a feel for Utter!’s power, take a look at the video below.

Play Link

Click here to view the embedded video.

Cheers @tomgillotti!

Beta Version of Utter! Released to Play Store, Most Powerful Voice Actions App to Date? is a post from: Droid Life

The Google TV teamed announced that new update is headed to GTV units in the near future. The update is the first to introduce Voice Search to Google TV, allowing you to easily switch channels by speaking their names, find how-to videos on YouTube, or even search for general terms like “football highlights.” They also updated their content-finding system and are calling it PrimeTime. With this new version, you can sort through recommended or favorite movie and TV titles without having to leave your current show. No longer do you have to sift through pages and pages of content while missing what you were already watching. And last, the new YouTube app update that was released yesterday, makes syncing videos between your mobile device and TV easier than ever.

The update will rollout to LG devices this week. The rest of the lot won’t see the update for a bit. The Logitech Revue and original Sony GTV devices will likely not see Voice Search. 

Click here to view the embedded video.

Via:  Google TV Blog

New Google TV Update Introduces Voice Search to Your TV, PrimeTime Guide to Easily Find Content is a post from: Droid Life

Google announced today that they are planning to release a new Google Search app for iOS that carries the advanced voice tech used (our first look) in the current build built into Jelly Bean (Android 4.1). While this is great news for iOS users, we can’t help but ask, “What about everyone else with an Android device that isn’t yet running Jelly Bean?” We don’t have an answer to that question at all, and that’s unfortunate. You would think that Google would take care of their own before moving onto another platform, but then again, as a search company, it makes sense for them to expand to such a massive platform. But then again, again, the advanced Voice Search in Jelly Bean was one of the major selling points for people to consider over an iOS device. 

To make matters worse, this new iOS Voice Search appears to be ever-so-slightly improved even over the build you and I are running on the Galaxy Nexus and Nexus 7. When you watch the video below, you’ll see it return results with voice for questions like “movies playing in Cape Cod” and “I need a mechanic,” two things that the current Android version won’t do.

Now, those additions are likely easy for Google to implement, plus they also aren’t in the beautiful card style that we get from Google Now. It is still a bit unfortunate that devices running Ice Cream Sandwich are being left out, though. After all, in most people’s minds, Jelly Bean is only a slightly upgraded version of ICS.

So who knows when the rest of the Android universe will see the new Google Voice Search. I can’t imagine it’s that far off. In fact, I wouldn’t be all that surprised if it showed up in the next week with even better functionality than what you are seeing here in the iOS version. That of course, is speculation.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Via:  Google

iOS to Get Advanced Google Voice Search in Coming Days, Still Nothing for Android Users Below Jelly Bean is a post from: Droid Life

Click here to view the embedded video.

On Tuesday, a new Jelly Bean user took to YouTube to show off the power of Google’s new Voice Search. During the video, he highlighted at least 40 different questions that were all given direct card answers to. After the video blew up the internet, he received another 20 or so tips from commenters and decided to make a follow-up. This time, he goes into pretty specific stuff and Voice Search still manages to answer via card. Oh, and wait until the end when you get to indoor street view using compass mode. Mind officially blown.

Cheers Cheese!

Video: Another 20 Examples of the Power of Google’s New Voice Search is a post from: Droid Life

Click here to view the embedded video.

Looking for some questions to test out the new Voice Search? Maybe you just want to impress some of your non-Jelly Bean friends? A gentleman recently posted a video to YouTube which gives 47 examples of what kind of questions or phrases you can use to get the most out of the new Voice Search. We hope you learn a few new ones.

Cheers Cheese!

Video: 40+ Questions to Test Out Google’s New Voice Search is a post from: Droid Life

At the Google I/O keynote from day 1 (watch it here at the 20:00 minute mark), the Android team took the wraps off a new product called Google Now that was powered by a new version of Voice Search (our hands-on). During the demo of it, we were all impressed by the beautiful new UI, answer cards with relevant info, and accuracy. To call this a giant step forward in voice searching, might even be an understatement.

Naturally, people were quick to compare this to Apple’s Siri since it gets all of the play these days in the voice search category. We argued that Siri isn’t even on the same level since Google Now actually predicts your life rather than forcing you to ask things of it all of the time, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t interested in a good battle between the two. So speaking of battles, who wants to see one? 

Our friends at TechnoBuffalo happen to have both an iPhone and Galaxy Nexus, giving them the opportunity to put Siri and the new Voice Search to the test. I don’t mean to spoil anything, but as an Android fan, you will walk away from this with your head held high.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Via:  TechnoBuffalo

Cheers Nick!

Video: Siri vs. New Google Voice Search is a post from: Droid Life

If you watched the Google I/O keynote from today, then you were probably as blown away as we were with their new Voice Search and Google Now offerings. The Voice Search now responds back to you, provides you with cards that have direct results for what you were looking for, and eventually learns your search patterns so that current and relevant information is always ready.

After spending a few minutes with it, we can easily say that we are impressed. It returned exactly what we were looking for, with the majority of searches coming via cards that are visually appealing. As this new Google Now and Voice Search continues to grow, this may be very useful. Unfortunately for most, this is a Jelly Bean feature that you may not see for a while.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Video: First Look at the New Google Voice Search and Google Now in Jelly Bean is a post from: Droid Life

With the announcement of the iPhone 4S and its Siri voice-integration followed by a couple of rumors that Google with introduce a similar service with Ice Cream Sandwich, we got to wondering how many people are actually interested in this type of software. Android has had Voice Actions for over a year now, but there have been other more advanced options on the market for just as long that don’t seem to get all that much love. With the unveiling of Siri, it seems like now this is the new cool thing because, well, Apple announced it. I personally have used Voice Actions or speech-to-text only when reviewing a service that has them and never in a real life situation other than to show it off as a cool feature to friends or family. I sort of get the feeling that I’m the minority.

Do I need to get with the times? Are highly-advanced voice-integrated services and apps the way of the future? Or are they the next gimmick like 3D on smartphones? Do we really have to watch the world walk around our streets talking to their phones as if they were a personal assistant? Maybe.

Thursday Poll: Is Having Better Voice Integration on Your Phone Important to You? is a post from: Droid Life