Being able to search via Google.com using the power of your voice is nothing new at this point, but actually initiating the whole process required clicking on the voice search icon in a search box. It's no great hardship in the grand scheme of things, granted, but things can always be better. That's why Google announced earlier this year that it would be bringing its hands-free activation of Google Search to Chrome.
JoinedJanuary 21, 2011
Articles20,352
Oliver Haslam has written about technology for over a decade. His work has been published in print at Macworld and online pretty much everywhere else. If it plugs in or has a battery, it's fair game.
If you've got an iPhone, iPod touch or an iPad that has Siri built-in and happen to own the right Honda or Acura car, then you can now drive into a dealer and have Siri Eyes Free installed after Honda announced its immediate availability via a press release.
It's been available to buy for a couple of months now, but getting your hands on a new iPhone 5s still isn't the easiest thing in the world. Things are starting to get better though, as Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster points out while pointing at a nice colorful graph that backs up his claim. It's a shame it's not the same graph that says when the Apple television well be released, eh Gene?
Valve's Steam Machine initiative is an interesting one, even if we can't help but wonder about its longevity. Regardless, anything that shakes up the PC gaming industry is fine by us, and Steam certainly did that. Can the Steam Machines do the same? We'll have to wait and see.
It may be one of the biggest gaming franchises on the planet, but that doesn't mean that Assassin's Creed developer Ubisoft is resting on its laurels. With the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 launching so recently, Ubisoft today remind everyone that it is committed to mobile platforms too with the announcement of a new, standalone game for iOS and Android.
Sometimes it's easy to forget that Apple's iPad isn't the only tablet in town. The world may sit up and take notice whenever Apple's announced a new iPad as shown by the latest iPad Air and iPad mini releases, but the same can't be said about the competition. That's why that competition often tries to gain notoriety by prodding Apple and sometimes even the people that buy its products. Yes, we're looking at you Samsung.
Rumors have been floating around for months, and Apple has now confirmed what was already pretty much a certainty - Apple has bought PrimeSense, the company behind the motion and depth detection technology that made the Xbox 360's Kinect accessory possible. It's worth nothing though that the recently released Xbox One's Kinect is based on Microsoft's own in-house cameras and software, rather than something built by PrimeSense.
It's fair to say that when Apple first showed iOS 7 to the world that it polarized opinion. Now, a couple of months following its official release alongside the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c, iOS 7 is still a software release that has people arguing about its worth. It seems that some of the people that really like the new iOS 7 aesthetic also happen to be the owners of not an iPhone, but an Android phone. If you are in this camp then you have a problem in that you're obviously not going to be installing iOS 7 any time soon.
As far as causes go, The Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has to be a pretty good one, and with names like Bono, Sir Jony Ive and Marc Newson, CBE involved in a charity auction for said cause, it was always going to be a success. Though, we suspect the results may have exceeded everyone's hopes by some way.
Microsoft seems determined to make the most of its ecosystem and that's never been more clear than the news that the company has launched the somewhat less than exciting Office Remote app for Windows Phone. If you've ever wanted to interact with Microsoft's Office apps by using your Windows Phone instead of a mouse, then you're in luck.
