Google Launches An Audio Search Engine For Android

Hear that? Google has just unveiled the latest addition to Google Labs, and it’s sure to crowd-pleaser for Android users. Dubbed Google Listen, the new project is an Android application that lets you quickly search through web audio content, which you can then directly download or stream to your phone. The app also acts as a podcast manager, allowing you to subscribe to audio feeds and download new content over the air.

Using the app is simple: you head to the search bar, then enter whatever it is you’re looking for, be it a specific podcast or a more general term like “tech”. Google will pull up the most relevant podcast and audio clips scattered across the web, which you can begin streaming immediately. If you’re interested in multiple matches you can build a queue, and Listen will automatically begin playing from your subscriptions once it reaches the end of the playlist. At this point the app is indexing “thousands” of content sources in English only, but Google intends to expand to other languages. The site’s FAQ also hints that it may index video in the future as well.

Here’s how Google describes Listen in the company’s blog post:

Listen quickly finds podcasts and web audio relevant to your searches, lets you stream over-the-air or download for later, and subscribe to fresh content from your favorite feeds and searches. In short, Listen helps organize the world of audio information and makes it easily accessible anytime, anywhere.

For now, Google Listen is only available on Android. This may be because the app is still early in development, but its omission from the iPhone may also stem from the issues Google has recently had getting its applications approved for the App Store — in the last few months, Apple has rejected a native application of Google Latitude, and also banned all Google Voice apps. Even without the recent controversy, Apple may well have smacked the app down for competing with iTunes’ podcasting functionality (other apps have been rejected for this in the past).

Yahoo! Adds Voice Search To iPhone App

Not too long ago, Google added voice recognition to their iPhone search application. Not one to be behind the times, Yahoo! has gone and done the same.

Well, that’s what we should have been able to say. Instead, Yahoo’s voice recognition add-on comes nearly 6 months after Google’s. Of course, Yahoo’s application is a bit more complex than Google’s, being that it also handles news, aggregates various social sites, and a good amount more beyond search. That being said, search is Yahoo’s main gig. Combined with the fact that everyone hates typing, Yahoo should have done this ages ago.

Yahoo’s implementation is quite different than Googles – for better or worse.

Back when Google initially launched their app with voice search functionality, it caused a bit of a stir. Google had made use of an API that was generally off limits the app developers. The API they used took input from the iPhone’s proximity sensor, allowing them to tell if the phone was placed near the user’s face. Once the proximity sensor went off, voice recording began. Had Apple let Google slide intentionally, or did the person in charge of reviewing the app just miss the memo that this was a no-go? As with anything on the internet, conspiracy theories were fairly rampant.

Whether they tried to make use of the same API and were denied or they simply chose to avoid conflict, we’re not sure – but Yahoo opted to go with a more traditional push-to-begin, push-to-stop recording method. It’s not quite as slick, but it has an upside: it doesn’t screw up. At least, it doesn’t screw up without an obvious reason (see below.) I’m not sure if the proximity sensor just hates my manly facial scruff or something, but Google’s solution tends to misfire a lot. It’ll detect my face and begin the recording, then stop a second or two later. I’ll pull my iPhone away to see what’s going on, and the sensor will fire off, starting the recording again. Every one of my voice-powered Google iPhone app searches seems to begin with “Wait, damn it, okay ..” This is a little more fool-proof.

On the downside, they placed the Record/Stop record right in the middle of the screen – smack dab where your cheek bone will sit, potentially misfiring the button. This happened to me twice in testing. Holding the iPhone at a slight angle (so that it doesn’t touch your cheek) fixes things.

This recording method could arguably be more user-friendly, but the voice recognition isn’t. Of 3 tests, 2 of which were significantly inaccurate.

Test #1:
What I said: Blah blah blah, blah blah blah.
What Yahoo! detected: Blah blah blah, blah blah blah

Test #2:
What I said:This is a story all about how, My life got flipped-turned upside down
What Yahoo! detected: This is a story of the town of west africa upside down

Test #3:
What I said:This is a test of yahoo voice recognition, test test, 1 2 1 2
What Yahoo! detected: This test of yahoo voice recognition, test, test tube 1 2 4

As you can see from test 1, Yahoo!’s voice recognition is outstanding at picking up “Blah”s. As you can see from test 2, however, it is fairly terrible at picking up the Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air theme. And for test 3? We can see where the “test tube” mistake happened (”Test One Two” kind of sounds like “test tube”) – but where the hell did that “4″ come from?

Oh well – maybe it’s just my crazy exotic Californian accent screwing things up

Video Of SGN’s Unlaunched iPhone Jet Dogfighter Game

People say the iPhone is really a gaming device with a mobile phone bolted on. And given how much time I spend playing games on my iPhone, I tend to agree. The touchscreen, accelerometer and (mostly still untapped) ability to play games against others over Wifi or 3G make gameplay compelling.

Social Gaming Network (among the first to exploit the iPhone accelerometer to create Wii-like games), is coming out with a new jet fighter dogfight game. The graphics are stunning, and you can fight against computer opponents or other people playing the game.

This isn’t the first iPhone dogfight game (Flying Aces and Top Gun are popular), but the graphics are way beyond what I’ve seen with the other games, the social fighting aspect is a first and unlike those games, SGN’s will be free. I had a chance to play it this morning in our offices, a video of that demo is below.

The application hasn’t been named yet and is still a month or so from launch, but SGN says if you email launch@sgn.com they’ll respond back when the game launches. The game will be free, and eventually users will be able to pay to upgrade their jets and weapons. In the first version users will train and add levels, but when the iPhone 3 comes out this summer, they say, a war is going to break out.

Samsung I7500! Android finally arrives in Korea

Samsung finally went ahead and did what we’ve expected them to do today with the announcement of their first Android powered handset, the I7500. Better late than ever, I say. The I7500 is no slouch in the feature department with a 3.2-inch AMOLED touch-screen, GPS, Wi-Fi, and 8GB of internal memory. It’s also an HSDPA capable device with a 5-megapixel AF camera with Power LED (no clue what that is but I assume it’s flash), Bluetooth 2.0, USB 2.0, MicroSD (up to 32GB support) and a 3.5mm earphone jack. It’s also pretty thin at 0.47 inches.

The media player should be pretty good with MPEG4, H.263/4 and WMV video playback support. The following audio codecs are also supported in case you were wondering: MP3, AAC, AAC+, e-AAC+, WMA, RA. Battery life should also be okay with a 1500mAh removable battery.

No word on price, but the I7500 will launch in Europe this June.

I can’t say that I’m surprised Samsung will launch the I7500 in Europe first, but touting themselves as the first of the three top global handset manufacturers to announce an Android handset is nothing to boast about in my opinion. What is it with this company and having to be the first at something no matter what it is?

Netgear’s new set-top box

Remember this useful little set-top box from Netgear? Well, it’s available. That’s pretty much all there is to this post. It’s a nice little net-connected box that’ll stream all the usual stuff, upconvert whatever signal suits your fancy to 1080p, and it has a couple unique features that require you to buy more than one of the things.

Personally I’d go for a more readily tweakable platform like a cracked 360, but I’m more of a tech guy than say my parents, for whom this would probably be a great option.

It’s an Android netbook!

We’ve been hearing for a while about this and that company thinking about making an MID or netbook (or desktop) with Android as the OS. Well! Someone’s gone and done it! And they even shot video, the dears.

The guys at NetbookNews put it on an i-Buddie, and recorded it for posterity. Unfortunately, it’s extremely short, there’s not a lot done, and error messages pop up frequently. This looks more like a curious hacker trying something out than a serious attempt at implementing the mobile OS as a PC one.

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFnqwdIqEW0]