Voice Recognition Debuts on the Palm OS

A number of new Voice control applications have recently been developed for the palmOne Treo smartphone series and certain Palm OS 5 handhelds with microphones. These new apps offer voice dialing of contacts and voice control of many common PDA functions.

Treo 650 - Voice Dialing
palmOne has posted a new Treo Voice Dialing application by Voice Signal exclusively for the Treo 650 on the support downloads page. The software allows you to place phone calls with your voice and dial any number or person in your address book.

Treo Voice Dialing uses "speaker independent" technology that does not require samples of your speech in order to work. This means you can start voice dialing immediately without a setup. The program is a demo that works for 14 days, and then is available for purchase from palmOne. It does not appear compatible with the Treo 600, nor is a price listed.

Treo 600 - Voice Dialer
Grover Industries has recently released Voice Dialer v1.0.3 for the Treo 600. The program allows you to voice dial contacts after a training process. There is a demo available and the program costs $19.95 to register, It also requires the latest Treo firmware.

Another option for the Treo 600 is VoiceLauncher. It too requires samples of your voice to learn commands but it can also perform other tasks outside of dialing contacts. The program will even monitor ambient noise and auto adjust the mic sensitivity.

Palm OS 5 - Voice Commander
For Treos as well as Palm OS 5 units with microphones including some Tungsten and Clie models, Voice Commander is voice recognition software for the Palm OS 5 and higher. You can use voice commands to launch any application and activate system commands such Find, create a new Memo, fetch email, open system Preferences and more.

Accorinding to ToySoft, Voice Commander v0.88 is easy to use and configure. You activate it by assigning the app to any of the four hard keys. When you press the activation key you can then speak the voice command. Therefore, you can be in any application to use a voice command. The program is available to try and sells for $14.95 USD.

Thanks to gadgetguru for the tip.