If you do not have an iPhone 4S and its Siri speech recognition assistant, Nuance points out that its free Dragon Go! app for the iPhone can tie into the same Wolframalpha decision engine that Siri does. There is a gotcha, however, since I have been unable to get it to automatically be invoked even using Nuance's own demonstration question (what is the square root of 10?).


Read More: Dragon Go! as a Poor Man’s Siri? Siri-ously? No. Check Out These Query Responses

Michael Arrington reports that Nuance is set to buy Swype for more than $100 million. Swype created an innovative gesture typing app for Android. Android users are able to enter text by swiping a finger across an on-screen keyboard. Nuance has its own FlexT9 Android app that provides multi-modal text input using speech, keyboard gestures, finger writing and predictive typing. Nuance's FlexT9 uses technology that came from an earlier company that was founded by Swype's Cliff Kushler.


Read More: Nuance (Dragon) Buying Swype for $100+M?

Nuance released an update to the free Dragon Go! for iPhone app that adds Spotify, Wolfram|Alpha, Ask.com, Dictionary.com and Google+ to the list of content sources that can be queried by voice.


Read More: Dragon Go! for iPhone Update: Voice Query Spotify, WolframAlpha, Ask.com, Dictionary.com and Google+

If your business uses Salesforce.com's services, you may want to take a look at a free iPhone speech recognition app from Nuance designed specifically for Saleforce.com's products.


Read More: Dragon for Salesforce: Talk to Salesforce.com’s Business Cloud Products

UK Dragon's Den star, entrepreneur and active Twitter user Duncan Bannatyne has found himself at the sore end of social media today as someone used Twitter to demand money and threaten his daughter.The offender used Twitter to draw Bannatyne's attention to a Pastebin message, which reads

"My name is Yuri Vasilyev and I'm looking for a £35,000 investment to stop us hurting your Hollie Bannatyne. We will bring hurt and pain into your life.We are watching her. She is very attractive. Wan [...]

Read More: Dragon's Den star offers reward as Twitter user threatens his daughter

Speech recognition is one of those functions that works well and is desirable under some conditions (e.g., voice dialing while driving) and doesn't make sense under others (e.g., dictating a report while in a crowded cubicle environement). Some speech recognition applications are great show pieces but might not be practical. Nuance's new free iPhone app leans toward this category.Dragon Go!Nuance describes Dragon Go! like this: Dragon Go! knows what you want simply by how you say [...]

Read More: Dragon Go! from Nuance: Free App for iPhone That Answers Questions You Speak