Google announced a new Android feature called Voice Actions today, and it's useful, but maybe not a big enough deal to warrant the press conference they held for it. Voice Actions allows you to control your Android phone (2.2 Froyo only) with spoken commands: you can send email, call any contact, get a map of a location, load a webpage or leave a note to yourself.
Here's the full list of commands:
send text to [contact] [message]
listen to [artist/song/album]
call [business]
call [contact]
send email to [contact] [message]
go to [website]
note to self [note]
navigate to [location/business name]
directions to [location/business name]
map of [location]
Plus, of course, the existing voice command to run a Google search.
It's somewhat useful, especially if you need to do things on your phone while driving, but seriously? A press conference? I feel like Google should be saving those for its big, iPhone-killing announcements, instead of underwhelming us with a handy but not-so-revolutionary feature.
Oh yeah, there was also that push-to-phone thing, but we already knew about that, too...
Tags: android, google, mobile, voice actions, voice control, VoiceActions, VoiceControl
