Sensory brings voice activation to the Samsung Galaxy – “Hi Galaxy”

SANTA CLARA, USA: The new Galaxy S III, unveiled by Samsung, is the latest Galaxy device to incorporate Sensory’s TrulyHandsfree technology. Sensory’s TrulyHandsfree has now been integrated into three Samsung products: the Galaxy S II, Galaxy Note and now the Galaxy S III.

Sensory’s TrulyHandsfree enables users of these Samsung devices to activate and access their device with the voice trigger phrase “Hi Galaxy.” Through voice activation users have the ability to access and run applications such as voice-to-text, calling and music - all without touching their phone.

Sensory Inc., a developer of speech recognition, voice activation, speaker verification and identification software and semiconductors, developed the TrulyHandsfree technology to be the first always-on, always listening voice control trigger that works. The technology is robust enough to work in noisy environments, has a low risk of false fires (won’t make a call when you don’t want it to) and has minimal impact on battery life, making it the ideal voice activation solution for mobile devices.

“Sensory’s TrulyHandfree solution enables mobile devices to be safer and more convenient to use,” said Todd Mozer, CEO of Sensory. “Samsung has been a pioneer in adopting this new approach to speech technology which is really building momentum in the mobile market.”

“Voice activation is the last piece of the speech recognition puzzle needed to deliver a 100 percent hands free device experience,” said Michael Morgan, mobile devices senior analyst with ABI Research. “Sensory’s TrulyHandsFree solution is the leader in bringing this capability to iconic mobile devices such as the Samsung Galaxy II, Note and III. The accuracy and low power consumption of Sensory’s solution in today’s mobile devices will become a driving force in making voice activation a must have feature across a vast array of consumer electronics.”

Overview of Sensory's TrulyHandsfree Voice Control's distinctive features:

Most accurate speech activation: Accuracy concerns have historically prevented mass adoption of voice trigger technology. The risk of false fires must be eliminated so the device doesn't mistakenly activate when human speech or other sounds are heard and misrecognized as the trigger.

Furthermore, performance should remain reliable in the noisiest of environments like cars or crowded living rooms. Sensory has perfected this highly noise tolerant approach, and in a quiet environment the technology can even respond to commands delivered as far as 20 feet away.

Natural, intuitive and safe voice user interface:TrulyHandsfree can be always-on and listening for dozens of keywords that will bring the device to life to be controlled via further voice commands. These keywords or phrases can be spoken in the middle of a sentence so users are not confined to a forced dialogue. In this scenario, consumers are communicating in a more human-like fashion, without the distraction and inconvenience of button presses. With TrulyHandsfree Voice Control, users are not required to hold the device to their mouth to deliver commands.

Unique expertise to deliver “always on”, low power hands-free experience: Speech technology is experiencing dramatic growth due to the rise of cloud computing and internet connected devices that enable complex voice searches and text-to-speech for data retrieval. Yet these server-based voice capabilities cannot be accessed truly handsfree without a client-side, low power, voice trigger technology. Certain use cases demand the safety and ease of button-less activation.

Sensory’s low MIPS and low current consumption enable a deeply embedded implementation to low power consumption in mobile and other battery powered devices. This “deeply embedded” approach is achieved by running below the OS layer on the lowest power hardware within the mobile phone infrastructure.