I made a number of interesting discoveries at the Pocket PC Summit, which was held concurrently with the CTIA Wireless IT and Entertainment show in October, 2003. In addition to getting a first look at some new and yet-to-be-released Windows Mobile Pocket PCs and Smartphones, I saw some cool new hardware accessories and innovative software.
Voice Command: Voice recognition for mobile devices
Microsoft’s new Voice Command application turns your Windows Mobile 2003 Pocket PC or Phone Edition device into a personal assistant that “listens” for your commands and responds accordingly. Voice Command does not need to be “trained” To recognize your commands. Once you’ve installed it, all you do is press a user-defined hardware button to activate Voice Command, and speak out your command. Launch any program simply by saying “start” and then the name of the program (e.g., “Start Internet Explorer”). Additional voice commands are available for Contacts, Calendar, and Media Player. A specific contact can be located and displayed by saying the contact’s first and last name, or company name. If you have a Phone Edition device, you can say “Call John Doe,” or say the phone number, and it will dial John’s phone number. The Calendar commands include “What are my appointments?” and “What is my next appointment?” Voice Command recites the title, location, and time of all your upcoming appointments in a clear but mechanical-sounding voice. If you forget the command, just say “Help” or “What can I say?” and the program will recite all the commands for you.
Voice Command adds some nice features to Window Media Player. You can play the music of your choice by speaking out the name of the album, artist, genre. You can also use voice commands such as “Play,” “Stop,” “Next,” “Previous,” “Shuffle,” “On/Off,” and “Track” to control your musical experience. The only things lacking were commands for the Tasks application—you can launch it with a voice command, but nothing else. I’d like to see some commands for closing and ending programs added to a future release. Overall, Voice Command did a fairly good job of recognizing my voice and executing the commands I spoke. It’s not 100% accurate, but recognition gets better with usage.
Use with: Windows Mobile 2003 Pocket PC and Phone Edition
Price: $39.95http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/products/voicecommand/default.mspx
SanDisk Extreme CompactFlash: Fast memory for quick file transfer
If you need to transfer a large number of images, documents, or music files to your device, then SanDisk’s new high-performance Extreme CompactFlash memory is for you. This CF Type I card uses ARC-based microcontrollers, advanced firmware, and high-performance 0.13 micron NAND flash memory. Sustained write speeds of 9 MB per second and read speeds of 10 MB per second allow very fast transfers. It really shines when used with a high-speed USB 2.0-compliant reader attached to your PC, and the newer CF-slot-equipped Windows Mobile 2003 devices.
Use with: Windows Mobile devices with CF card slots
Price: 256 MB, $109.99; 512 MB, $229.99; 1 GB, $439.99http://www.sandisk.com/consumer/extreme.asp
Microdrives from GS Magicstor and Hitachi offer up to 4.8 GB of file storage
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