How to Use Voice Actions with Droid X

Possibly the most amazing part of Droid X’s amazing Voice Actions feature is this: The only thing you really need to know about it is how to talk. Your voice is its command. The excerpt below from the O'Reilly book Droid X: The Missing Manual explains how.

---

Launch the voice action in one of three ways:

• Hold down the Search key.
  
  
• Tap the Voice icon to the right of the Google Search box.
  
  
• Run the Voice Search app from the Application Tray.

Note: The Voice icon shows up wherever the Google search box does, either when you’re visiting Google on the Web, or in the Google Search Box widget that appears on the Social Networking pane.

Another amazing thing about the Voice Actions feature is that it seamlessly uses two different speech technologies to do what you tell it to: voice recognition and speech-to-text. With voice recognition, it recognizes the action you want to take and then accomplishes the action: “Send text” or “Navigate to,” for example.

With speech-to-text, it translates your words into written text and, for example, embeds that text in an email or text message. Say you tell your Droid X: “Send text to Ernest Hemingway. Consider using young woman and the sea as title because demographics are better.” Your Droid X will find Ernest Hemingway’s contact information and then send him the text message “Consider using young woman and the sea as title because demographics are better.”

Whichever way you launch Voice Actions, a screen appears with a picture of a microphone and the words “Speak now”. Tell the Droid X what you want it to do, and it displays a “Working” screen to show you that it’s deciphering what you want it to do. Remember, if you’re sending an email or a text message, you can dictate the message itself.

Note: If instead of speaking a command, such as to send an email, you merely say a term, the Droid X will launch a Google search for that term.





Next, the Droid X does what you tell it—for example, composes an email or text message. If you tell it to compose an email or text message, it won’t immediately send it. Instead, it shows you the message, so you can send it, edit it, or cancel it.