An informative infographic has been created showing how speech recognition impacts our lives and how its being used to change and develop our world. The infographic has been created by Medical Transcription and shows the technology used behind  Automated Speech Recognition (ASR). Showing examples of areas we now take for granted and new areas that are currently under development like lie detection within banks and voice controlled applications.

Google has already invested heavily in ASR development and hopes to push out new service using the technology. The reason Google’s ASR system works so well when you use it, is because Google is currently storing every spoken or written search terms entered into its systems, explains the infographic. I wonder how many that actually is?

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If you are the lucky owner of a Nook Color a new update rolling out this week brings with it access to over 200 interactive magazines, optimised for the Nook Color. The new magazines will be available through the Nook Newstand application providing users with access to Time, Fortune, People and Sports Illustrated to name a few.

The Nook optimised editions will provides interactive magazines including audio podcasts, video, photos and animations with in them to the Nook. If you already subscribe to any of the printed editions of the magazines you will be able to access the digital editions at no extra cost.

Barnes & Noble’s  Jonathan Shar, vice president and general manager of the digital newsstand said:

"We’re proud to work with leading periodical publishers to deliver an unmatched selection of bestselling digital magazi ... Read more »

N-Control has just announced that they are no taking pre-orders for their PS3 version of the N-Control Avenger controller add-on. The N-Control Avenger has been available to Xbox 360 players since February 2011, but soon PS3 games will also be able to benefit from the adapters enhanced gaming control.

The PS3 N-Control Avenger like the Xbox 360 version has been designed to enhances the gamer’s manual dexterity and situational awareness by improving accuracy and reaction time. By reducing the amount of movement required to press a button or triggers, and also allowing you to access nine functions simultaneously.

The Avenger comes complete with stabiliser tripod, high-precision tension straps, hair-triggers, and sensitivity adjusters, which can be fine-tuned like a precision ... Read more »

A new commercial has been created by Ryactive, bringing together Tron Guy, (Jay Maynard) and Duct Tape to create

” Duck Tron”. Watch the video after the jump complete with showdown when Tron Guy’s wife crashes the party.

When he’s not playing Tron Guy, Jay Maynard is a computer programmer and system administrator and the volunteer

project maintainer for Hercules, an emulator of IBM mainframe hardware.

When the sequel movie Tron: Legacy was released he was unfortunately not allowed to view the film in his iconic Tron

suit at his local movie theatre because of the illuminating lights on his suit might distract other movie goers.

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RIM has announced the launch of three new Blackberry Curve models in the form of the "affordable” Curve 9360, Curve 9350 and Curve 9370. All three new Curve smartphones will run RIM’s next generation BlackBerry 7 OS, which RIM reports is 40 percent quicker than its previous Blackberry 6 OS.

They are also equipped with NFC technology, 5 megapixel cameras – complete flash and video recording, and memory that can be increased when needed to a maximum of 32GB. The handsets will also be running the latest Facebook 2.0 application which includes Facebook Chat, together with a newly updated Blackberry Messenger.

The new Blackberry Curve handsets will be launched globally from September  but will be arriving in Canada a little earlier before the end of August 2011. No prices or tariffs have yet been announc ... Read more »

Another day, another bout of reassurances from Bioware that the second game in the series was a complete and unforeseeable fluke. This is, however, the first time we’re hearing anything about Dragon Age 3 except confirmation of its existence, so there’s still room for something other than disappointment. For now.

"I think that the team has actually got a great plan. I think the team is going to have some things that are going to surprise both sets of fans, both core fans and new fans with a marriage of these… the best from both games, Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age 2. And we look forward more to talking about that in the future,” Bioware co-founder Ray Muzyka said, sadly without mentioning which of those fans enjoy playing the same level fifteen different times with different areas blocked off. In case you thought we were th ... Read more »

Is DOTA and its increasingly numerous brethren far enough removed from its humble Warcraft 3 beginnings for us to attempt that Warhammer-Blizzard joke we’ve been working on ? We haven’t really gotten the details down, but it was going to be something really meta along the lines of how Blizzard is coming full circle by ripping itself off just like it did Games Workshop all those years ago, only they didn’t really make DOTA, did they? But they made fans who made DOTA, so that has to count for something, right?

Still, they may not have made DOTA the first time around, but they definitely plan to take a crack at it now. Only they’re doing it Blizzard-style. ”One of the important things to note with that space is the DOTA everyone plays on Warcraft 3 is not particularly accessible to the novice,” according ot Executive Vice President, Product Developm ... Read more »

We’re not sure when we can stop attributing these unfortunate events to the omnipresent economic crisis and just start seeing them as the cost of doing business again, but it probably doesn’t matter all that much for the 90% of staff currently suffering "temporary layoffs” over at XBLA game D&D Daggerdale developer Bedlam.

"Bedlam Games – the studio formed by ex-R* Toronto blokes after The Warriors – laid off most of its staff and effectively shuttered last month,” read the tweet that revealed the closure, coming from a source that has previously brought to light such news as the Team Bondi LA Noire disturbances. Apparently most devs have landed on their feet, as is the wont of talented developers. For what it’s worth, we thought Daggerdale was thoroughly decent and The Warriors even more so.

Source ... Read more »

Despite the popular notion that the PSP Go’s had rather a poor showing as a vehicle for digital downloads, we’re more of the opinion it had a poor showing as a vehicle for convincing gamers with hefty physical media collections to give them up entirely for no benefit whatsoever. Which, we’re sure you’ll agree, is a tall order for any handheld, especially one half-heartedly released at the end of the product’s life cycle.

Enter the PS Vita, the stupidly-named, but stupidly overpowered to compensate handheld Sony is bringing to the market later this year. A Sony rep has apparently promised that digital versions of all games released for the new console will be available day and date with retail copies. Sure,  Sony might have promised that exact same thing for the PSP Go back then and completely failed to deliver, but we can forgive a lot for a second ... Read more »