Peninsula Daily News news services
SAN FRANCISCO — If you have a Droid cellphone from Verizon or an HTC Evo from Sprint, your screen could soon have fewer finger smudges.
Google has introduced a large number of new features as part of a system upgrade for its Android phones that eliminate the need for typing — and compete with Apple’s voice-command app, Siri.
With a new free app, Voice Actions (listed in the online Android Market as Voice Search), people can verbally tell their phones to call, e-mail or text a contact, listen to music, set the alarm, go to a website, view directions or a map, or e-mail a note to themselves.
The previous ways to look up or send information on a phone — scrolling through apps and typing in messages — “are all fine ways of doing it, but they’re not particularly fast or efficient,” said Hugo Barra, a product management director at Google who showed a group of reporters the new app in San Francisco.
Talking to a phone is often easier, he said.
Think about running to your car holding bags and a baby and sending a text message to tell the person you’re meeting that you will be late.
Typing it would take two hands and a few minutes.
With Voice Actions, you can say “Send text to Jane. ‘I am running 10 minutes late, see you soon.’ ”
Say “Listen to the Decemberists,” and the phone will show you a list of your music apps to choose from and begin playing the music.
Say “Note to self,” and you will receive an e-mail message from yourself.
Many Android phone owners will not be able to use Voice Actions, because it is only available on Android 2.2, Google’s newly released iteration for its phone operating system that is chockablock with new features.
It is being sent only to the HTC Evo and the original Droid at the moment, but it also comes already installed on the new Droid 2.
In addition to enabling Voice Actions, Android 2.2 also adds a long list of features, including improvements to speed up processing and support Flash 10.1.
Using Flash means Android phones with the new system can see the majority of video and animation on the Web (something the iPhone can’t do).
Google also added the ability to accept commands from a Bluetooth headset.
Android 2.2 can share contacts with other phones, and it has a remote wipe feature, which means you can erase your phone remotely if it is lost or stolen.
IPhone owners missing out on such Voice Actions need not fret.
It can employ the voice command Siri, an application Apple acquired in April. It does even more complicated searches than Voice Actions, like booking a table for two at the restaurant down the street next weekend.
Another new Android app, Chrome to Phone, lets people using the Chrome browser from Google send the article or video they are reading or viewing on their computer to their phone, so they can finish it during their commute, or view walking directions on their phone once they leave their desk.
If you look up a phone number online, you can automatically send it to your phone to be dialed, eliminating the need to tap in the phone number.
“The device is connected to the cloud, and the desktop is connected to the cloud,” said Dave Burke, the Google engineering manager who built Chrome to Phone during the 20 percent of time that Google gives employees to work on new projects. “Why do we need to involve biology when it can be pure physics?”
Chrome to Phone can be downloaded as an extension in the browser or as an app on the phone. Since it is open source, outside developers are already working on versions for Firefox, Burke said, though Firefox to Phone just does not have the same ring to it.
