Speech Recognition Through the Decades

Looking back on the development of speech recognition technology is like watching a child grow up, progressing from the baby-talk level of recognizing single syllables, to building a vocabulary of thousands of words, to answering questions with quick, witty replies, as Apple's supersmart virtual assistant Siri does.

Listening to Siri, with its slightly snarky sense of humor, made us wonder how far speech recognition has come over the years. Here's a look at the developments in past decades that have made it possible for people to control devices using only their voice.

1950s and 1960s: Baby Talk
The first speech recognition systems could understand only digits. (Given the complexity of human language, it makes sense that inventors and engineers first focused on numbers.) Bell Laboratories designed in 1952 the "Audrey" system, which recognized digits spoken by a single voice. Ten years later, IBM demonstrated at the 1962 World's Fair its "Shoebox" machine, which could understand 16 words spoken in English.

Labs in the United States, Japan, England, and the Soviet Union developed other hardware dedicated to recognizing spoken sounds, expanding speech recognition technology to support four vowels and nine consonants.

They may not sound like much, but these first efforts were an impressive start, especially when you consider how primitive computers themselves were at the time.

1970s: Speech Recognition Takes Off
Speech Recognition Through the Decades: How We Ended Up With SiriSpeech recognition technology made major strides in the 1970s, thanks to interest and funding from the U.S. Department of Defense. The DoD's DARPA Speech Understanding Research (SUR) program, from 1971 to 1976, was one of the largest of its kind in the history of speech recognition, and among other things it was responsible for Carnegie Mellon's "Harpy" speech-understanding system. Harpy could understand 1011 words, approximately the vocabulary of an average three-year-old.

Harpy was significant because it introduced a more efficient search approach, called beam search, to "prove the finite-state network of possible sentences," according to Readings in Speech Recognition by Alex Waibel and Kai-Fu Lee. (The story of speech recognition is very much tied to advances in search methodology and technology, as Google's entrance into speech recognition on mobile devices proved just a few years ago.)

The '70s also marked a few other important milestones in speech recognition technology, including the founding of the first commercial speech recognition company, Threshold Technology, as well as Bell Laboratories' introduction of a system that could interpret multiple people's voices.

1980s: Speech Recognition Turns Toward Prediction
Over the next decade, thanks to new approaches to understanding what people say, speech recognition vocabulary jumped from about a few hundred words to several thousand words, and had the potential to recognize an unlimited number of words. One major reason was a new statistical method known as the hidden Markov model.

Rather than simply using templates for words and looking for sound patterns, HMM considered the probability of unknown sounds' being words. This foundation would be in place for the next two decades (see Automatic Speech Recognition—A Brief History of the Technology Development by B.H. Juang and Lawrence R. Rabiner).

Equipped with this expanded vocabulary, speech recognition started to work its way into commercial applications for business and specialized industry (for instance, medical use). It even entered the home, in the form of Worlds of Wonder's Julie doll (1987), which children could train to respond to their voice. ("Finally, the doll that understands you.")

However, whether speech recognition software at the time could recognize 1000 words, as the 1985 Kurzweil text-to-speech program did, or whether it could support a 5000-word vocabulary, as IBM's system did, a significant hurdle remained: These programs took discrete dictation, so you had … to … pause … after … each … and … every … word.

1990s: Automatic Speech Recognition Comes to the Masses
Speech Recognition Through the Decades: How We Ended Up With SiriIn the '90s, computers with faster processors finally arrived, and speech recognition software became viable for ordinary people.

In 1990, Dragon launched the first consumer speech recognition product, Dragon Dictate, for an incredible price of $9000. Seven years later, the much-improved Dragon NaturallySpeaking arrived. The application recognized continuous speech, so you could speak, well, naturally, at about 100 words per minute. However, you had to train the program for 45 minutes, and it was still expensive at $695.

The advent of the first voice portal, VAL from BellSouth, was in 1996; VAL was a dial-in interactive voice recognition system that was supposed to give you information based on what you said on the phone. VAL paved the way for all the inaccurate voice-activated menus that would plague callers for the next 15 years and beyond.

2000s: Speech Recognition Plateaus--Until Google Comes Along
By 2001, computer speech recognition had topped out at 80 percent accuracy, and, near the end of the decade, the technology's progress seemed to be stalled. Recognition systems did well when the language universe was limited--but they were still "guessing," with the assistance of statistical models, among similar-sounding words, and the known language universe continued to grow as the Internet grew.

Did you know speech recognition and voice commands were built into Windows Vista and Mac OS X? Many computer users weren't aware that those features existed. Windows Speech Recognition and OS X's voice commands were interesting, but not as accurate or as easy to use as a plain old keyboard and mouse.

Speech Recognition Through the Decades: How We Ended Up With SiriSpeech recognition technology development began to edge back into the forefront with one major event: the arrival of the Google Voice Search app for the iPhone. The impact of Google's app is significant for two reasons. First, cell phones and other mobile devices are ideal vehicles for speech recognition, as the desire to replace their tiny on-screen keyboards serves as an incentive to develop better, alternative input methods. Second, Google had the ability to offload the processing for its app to its cloud data centers, harnessing all that computing power to perform the large-scale data analysis necessary to make matches between the user's words and the enormous number of human-speech examples it gathered.

In short, the bottleneck with speech recognition has always been the availability of data, and the ability to process it efficiently. Google's app adds, to its analysis, the data from billions of search queries, to better predict what you're probably saying.

In 2010, Google added "personalized recognition" to Voice Search on Android phones, so that the software could record users' voice searches and produce a more accurate speech model. The company also added Voice Search to its Chrome browser in mid-2011. Remember how we started with 10 to 100 words, and then graduated to a few thousand? Google's English Voice Search system now incorporates 230 billion words from actual user queries.

Speech Recognition Through the Decades: How We Ended Up With Siri And now along comes Siri. Like Google's Voice Search, Siri relies on cloud-based processing. It draws what it knows about you to generate a contextual reply, and it responds to your voice input with personality. (As my PCWorld colleague David Daw points out: "It's not just fun but funny. When you ask Siri the meaning of life, it tells you '42' or 'All evidence to date points to chocolate.' If you tell it you want to hide a body, it helpfully volunteers nearby dumps and metal foundries.")

Speech recognition has gone from utility to entertainment. The child seems all grown up.

The Future: Accurate, Ubiquitous Speech
The explosion of voice recognition apps indicates that speech recognition's time has come, and that you can expect plenty more apps in the future. These apps will not only let you control your PC by voice or convert voice to text--they'll also support multiple languages, offer assorted speaker voices for you to choose from, and integrate into every part of your mobile devices (that is, they'll overcome Siri's shortcomings).

The quality of speech recognition apps will improve, too. For instance, Sensory's Trulyhandsfree Voice Control can hear and understand you, even in noisy environments.

As everyone starts becoming more comfortable speaking aloud to their mobile gadgets, speech recognition technology will likely spill over into other types of devices. It isn't hard to imagine a near future when we'll be commanding our coffee makers, talking to our printers, and telling the lights to turn themselves off.

Android Problems Solved

Whether you’ve got a Desire, Galaxy S, Droid or Nexus One our troulbleshooting guide will help you solve these common Android problems.

How do I re-install purchased apps?
You need to make sure that you have setup your Google account on your Android device, the same account you used to purchase the app, and then go to ‘My Downloads’ to retrieve the app. Free apps are not held in the My Downloads section, but can be retrieved direct from Android Market.

How can I soft reset my Android phone?
Try pressing the End, Send and Menu keys at the same time. This should restart the phone in working order, but if it does not try a battery pull.

Can I tether my Android phone to my laptop?
Yes. Many Android phones are supported by EasyTether which will allow most of the popular models to stream their mobile data via a laptop or desktop. Remember that a 3G connection is required at the very least to make the experience worthwhile.

Why are some apps not available in the Android Market?
Some apps will only work on specific phones with set screen resolutions. Check the developer’s product page for more information regarding which phones are compatible.

Should I worry about OS updates?
The Android OS does get updated often, but the only real advice is to buy the best model you can afford which should ensure that it will cope with at least the next 2 or 3 updates.

Is it safe to run Android on a Windows Mobile phone?
This is a difficult one because it is in many ways, but the overall experience will not live up to Android on a phone that has been designed for the OS. Some people have ported the OS, but a full backup should be a minimum precaution before you attempt to do this.

My phone can’t connect to my home Wi-Fi!
This is a common problem on some Android phones such as the Hero, but some quick steps could solve it. Wireless N routers are problematic with some Android phones so make sure you switch on B/G compatibility and that you have the latest router firmware installed. With luck your problems will be solved.

Can I send group SMS messages?
This has been a problematic issue for a while now, but there is a solution. Look for ‘Text Easy’ in the Android Market which has the features which allow you to create groups and select multiple contacts. It is free as well.

Where did my new contact go?
Sometimes when you add a new contact on an Android phone it will not show up in the contacts list. It is without doubt a problem that needs fixing, but the quick solution is to go to Google Contacts in GMail and you will see the new contact. Now, click the Groups button and then the ‘Add to My Contacts’ button. It will now appear on your phone.

Viewing photos is too slow!
Trying to view lots of photos in the native Android gallery app can be painfully slow especially if you have recently cleared the cache. The best solution is to search for alternative solutions in the Android market, of which there are a few, and see which works best for you.

Wrong email headers?
Some Android users suffer from an anomaly where email subjects do not match the emails themselves. The way to fix it is by resetting up your email account and clearing the original data. Go to Settings / Applications / Manage Applications and then choose the email application and ‘Clear Data’.

Can I back up my Android phone online?
Lookout Mobile Security will do the trick and allows you to backup your personal data and to also access it directly online. It is a free download and should offer some peace of mind.  Image: lookout.tiff  Lookout will look out for your data.

Coolest Android Ice Cream Sandwich Features

Wednesday morning, Google and Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Nexus, the first phone designed specifically with Android 4.0 (aka Ice Cream Sandwich) in mind. Ice Cream Sandwich will, naturally, make its way to other handsets when it's released to the public sometime in November. As such, we're taking a look at the latest Google Android mobile operating system.

Ice Cream Sandwich contains many new features, but we've highlighted 10 of the tastiest, ranging from wireless sharing to new widget management. Check out the features and images below for a rundown on the new operating system. Which is your favorite?

Face Unlock
Is swiping the home screen to unlock your phone growing a bit tiresome? Ice Cream Sandwich's new Face Unlock feature taps a phone's camera so that users can log in by simply looking at the handset. Don't worry, if you don't want to use your grill, you can still use a code number (or a drawing interface) to unlock the handset.

Android Beam
Ice Cream Sandwich leverages NFC (near-field communication) technology that lets users share apps, websites, YouTube videos, maps, directions, and more by simply tapping two Android 4.0 phones together, much like iOS's Bump It app.

New Browser Functionality
Android 4.0's Web browser has evolved to closely match the desktop Chrome browser. Ice Cream Sandwich includes Chrome sync (which keeps bookmarks synced between your handset and desktop browsers), a “full site" button (which let users switch between desktop and mobile views), tabs, and a new Incognito tab.

New Contacts and Social Networking Features
Ice Cream Sandwich's "People" streamlines the way that contacts are displayed. Contact information is culled from your social networking connections, plus any other custom info that you'd like to manually add. This data is displayed on cards (similar to Windows Phone 7.5's tiles) that are updated when the contact updates his or her social networking information.

Data Management
Bundled with Android 4.0 is a stock app that lets you control network activity and view a specific app’s data usage. What's the benefit of this? You can now set up warnings (for when you begin to approach certain data thresholds), and hard caps to avoid an overage-fee pummeling

New User Interface

New User Interface

Taking a cue from the Honeycomb tablet operating system, Ice Cream Sandwich sports a sleek futuristic design that more closely aligns the phone and slate OSes. Android 4.0 also has a multitasking icon that calls up your recently used apps, and eliminates the need for physical keys, as it features adaptable software buttons.

New Camera Capabilities
Have you ever wanted to take a photo with your phone, but lost the moment due to the relatively lengthy snap time? Ice Cream Sandwich aims to eliminate that with swift, multiple shot shooting that plays catch up with the recently released Apple iOS 5. Android 4.0 also packs a new filter-filled photo editor, and a particularly cool sounding feature: an image rotator that spins the photo based on where your eyes are looking.

Speech
Does Apple iOS 5's Siri have voice control competition in Ice Cream Sandwich? That remains to be seen, but Android 4.0’s live voice-to-speech feature lets smartphone users create e-mail, texts, and perform other functions simply by speaking. This should (hopefully) make dictation and messaging a swifter, more streamlined affair.

Simple Screenshots
Android finally lets you take screenshots without requiring users to install apps, pull hair, or gnash teeth. How is it done? Users (especially hardworking Android app reviewers) will appreciate the operating system’s ability to grab a screenshot by simultaneously holding power and volume-down buttons.

Widget Management
Ice Cream Sandwich gives you widget flexibility by letting you select the size of displayed information on the home screens. Android 4.0 makes it easier to place widgets on the desktop; you simply press and hold the screen which opens a menu that reveals all of the widgets.

Motorola Droid 3 Android Smartphone

The Motorola Droid 3 is one of the fastest Android handsets on the market. The 1 Ghz dual core processor allows it to handle the most taxing apps and games you can get your hands on. The design is in line with the previous Droid models, this one being the slimmest of them all. The handset measures 4.9 inches by 2.5 inches and just 0.5 inches thick. This is quite larger than the iPhone 4 and gives you that 4-inch qHD (960×540) display that is big, beautiful and vibrant for watching videos, typing emails and surfing the web. The full retail price is $460, or $199 on a 2 year plan with Verizon Wireless.

Design
This has to be one of my favorite Motorola handsets to date. The keyboard’s tactile feedback is superior to most others ive used. It’s a horizontal slider, just push down and the keyboard slides out on the bottom. The spacing of the keys are offset in a way that you would be more used to, rather than being setup like those QWERTYs which for some odd reason have all the keys overtop of eachother unlike a traditional keyboard. On the Droid 3 you get a dedicated row of number keys, this was pleasing since one thing I can’t stand about touch screen devices is that the majority of them hide the numbers in a 2nd menu, and then ones with QWERTY keyboards orient them in such a way that you would need to use the ALT or FN key in an obscure location of letters. Not the Droid 3.

On the bottom you have a Micro-USB port and HDMI port, the volume rocker is situated on the opposite side, while the power button sits on top. I would have prefered the Micro-USB to be on top, so that it wouldn’t get in the way when it’s charging. You have dual cameras of adequate ability, although the VGA camera on the front is poor in low light, which front facing camera isnt. The rear 8 megapixel performs slightly better, but nothing to replace your P&S with. There’s also no dedicated camera key, which could have been added since there’s a heck of a lot of room on this thing to put more buttons.

Software
The Motorola Droid 3 is running on Android 2.3 Gingerbread with Motorola’s Motoblur software over top. It’s a nice experience, smooth, easy to navigate and gets the job done. You have a dock which you can customize with four of your most used apps. I wouldn’t say its the best, but it’s definitely far from the worst. I think this is more of a personal experience so you should test all phones with that in mind, feel out the UI and decide what works for you best. What feels most natural. One thing to mention is that although with a hardware keyboard, Motorola didn’t cheap out on the software keyboard. It’s very nice and responsive, easy to quickly tap out something without sliding out the full QWERTY.

Verizon is all over this thing. V Cast Music, VZ Navigator (not my choice), V Cast Tones, Vast Videos and some others I didnt get around to using. Skype Mobile and Quickoffice, as well as the Kindle app are stock which is nice to have from the get-go. Unfortunately there’s no way to delete them either (unless you root it). Which is a synch, you can root the Droid 3 with a simple utility that does it for you with a single click.

With advanced security features, it may be an appealing device to business users and professionals. Some of these include advanced SD Card encryption, remote data wipe, and complex password support. Verizon also ships it with GoToMeeting, if you don’t use it already, this will let you join online meetings. Another bonus is the Citrix Receiver, its an app that allows you to access your desktop remotely.

Hardware
World roaming allows you to take this with you anywhere. On Verizon however, it will function on the companies CDMA/EV-DO Rev. A network. Globally, it can jump on a GSM network of another carrier. To do this you will need to have the phone unlocked, which Verizon would do for you if you’ve been a customer for longer than 60 days. This will enable you to purchase a SIM card from an international carrier and utilize local carrier fees in that country rather than pay exorbitant roaming fees.

The phone has speakerphone, which is next to terrible in most situations. The majority of calls I tried to use speakerphone with I had to switch to regular mode as the callers could barely hear me. The complaint was typically “you’re voice is breaking up.” So driving in a car which you would expect a speakerphone to work with, doesn’t perform as well as expected.

All the typical bells and whistles are included, Stereo Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS, 3G, no 4G LTE on this handset, Micro SD expansion memory slot with 16GB internal, micro HDMI (cable sold separately) and a 1,540mAh battery.

With a decent camera app, a strong 8-megapixel camera sensor with autofocus, LED flash and 1080p HD Video capabilities, you could theoretically get by with just this as your shooter. I myself wouldn’t, but some people could. Remember, it’s all about sensor size and quality. The video was good, a bit of grain, but in a nice way. Colours were over satured in still shots, in low light, well, what smartphone camera actually does perform well in low light really? You use the flash and you get those sparsely lit ugly pictures.

Performance
As I mentioned earlier, the speakerphone resulted in poor audio quality for the receiving party. I sounded broken or far away to callers, on the other hand they sounded perfectly clear and sharp to me. This could have been background noise, weak signal, or perhaps a problem with the microphone hardware itself.  I don’t know if others have experienced a similar problem, but if you have let us know.

As you can see in the Quadrant benchmark, it ranked 2191.  By the looks of it, nearly 100% faster than the Nexus One and HTC EVO.

Running the Texas Instrument’s OMAP 4430 1GHz dual-core processor with 512MB of RAM, this is one of the fastes smartphones on the market as I’m writing this. Apps load quick, it boots very fast, the cybernetic Droid eye is also a nice touch.

Battery life is ok, but not good. From a full charge I streamed live video over 3G for a 45 minute commute and ended up with 10% battery remaining. Talk time is rated at 9 hours and standby is 12 days. I didn’t get nearly close to those numbers. The FCC radiation tests list the Droid 3 with a SAR rating of 0.77W/kg and a Hearing Aid Compatibility rating of M4/T3.

Bottom Line
I liked the Motorola Droid 3 as an overall smartphone, enough so to make it my daily handset. The full QWERTY keyboard is really a treat, making texting, emailing and surfing a fluid and natural experience. I never felt like I was restricted at any time while using it; I could type as fast as I wanted. Battery life and screen resolution could be improved, and lacking 4G doesn’t really help things either. GPS connections are intermittent, the built-in apps make this an out of the box GPS but the hardware is just not performing as well as it could.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1

Times have changed substantially from the days of the Samsung Instinct. That was a sad dumbphone that tried to compete with Apple;s iPhone. Now, though, the Samsung Galaxy S line of Android smartphones are among the best in the business, but can we say the same about their tablets? Well, let’s have a look at one of the best in the bunch in the form of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. It’s name is pretty much self-explanatory: this is a Samsung tablet with a 10.1-inch screen. Does it stand out?

Features and Specs

Quite unlike the original seven-inch Galaxy Tab, this version isn’t running on a stretched out version of a smartphone operating system. Like the Asus Eee Pad and Motorola Xoom, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 has Honeycomb under the hood. There is some customization with TouchWiz too. It’s still unclear whether this will be upgradeable to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich at some point in the future, but I’m perfectly happy with Honeycomb for now.

This particular review is of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 4G from Bell Mobility, but it’ll largely be the same Tab 10.1 as you’d find elsewhere like the recently “leaked” date from T-Mobile on November 2.

It’s not Super AMOLED Plus, but it’s still very bright and vibrant. It boasts a 1280×800 pixel resolution. As with so many other tabs of this ilk, it gets a dual core 1GHz processor, 1GB RAM, 16GB storage, WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth, and so on. The camera on the back is a 3MP unit capable of 720p video recording. The “4G” part of the name refers to the HSPA network compatibility with speeds up to 21Mbps.

The Skinny Tab

“Wow. This is thin.”

That was the first thought that struck me when I opened up the box. Yes, I realize that most tablets are relatively skinny these days, but with just a 8.6mm profile, I believe the Galaxy Tab 10.1 is the skinniest of them all. That may or may not be a good thing, depending on your personal preferences. I had a friend say that he didn’t like that it was so thin, because it made it more difficult to get a good handle on it.

Coupled by the fact that the back is a slippery glossy plastic and you can see how grip might become a bit of a concern. Contrast this to, say, the slightly thicker Asus Eee Pad Transformer with its more textured back and you’ll notice the difference right away. Even so, I didn’t find the slippery back and super slim size to be much of a problem at all.

The design is actually very simple with just three buttons in total. There’s the power button, of course, and the two volume control buttons. That’s it. Ports are very simple too: you get a headphone jack, a charging port, and a slot for the SIM card. This relative simplicity is both a blessing and a curse.

It’s Honeycomb All Over Again

There’s not a lot to say about the UI, since you’ve seen it all before. Yes, Samsung has gone through the trouble of putting a few tweaks here and there with TouchWiz, like several of the Samsung-specific home screen widgets, but they’re relatively minimal. I did like how there was a dedicated screenshot “button” near the home, recent apps, and back “buttons” on the screen, though, but not everyone will want or need that kind of functionality.

The settings menu looks a little different too, but I wouldn’t say that it’s necessarily any better or worse. Getting at the hotspot functionality seemed a little simpler, including the ease of changing the security and password settings, but these are all really minor.

Battery life was again on par with other Android tablets, getting somewhere around 8-10 hours under constant usage. Naturally, your mileage will vary considerably here depending on how and how often you use the tablet. With intermittent usage, I could get a couple days before needing to reach for a power outlet.

Quadrant Standard and Speedtest Benchmarks

To give an objective test to the performance, I put the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 through Quadrant Standard. The results were within the realm of expectation, getting anywhere from 2022 to 2288 in the few iterations that I attempted. This range is similar to other Honeycomb tablets with similar specs.

General everyday performance felt reasonably smooth most of the time and it stood up to par with other similarly equipped Honeycomb tablets that I have tried. The exception was when I tried to play YooNinja, a game where a ninja runs quickly across the screen. The game played much more slowly than I had experienced elsewhere, but I’m not sure why: other games seemed to be just as smooth as elsewhere.

As far as the 4G network was concerned, I ran a few tests with Speedtest.net in the Vancouver area. Ping was typically under 100ms with the download speed in the 2-3Mbps range. This is a far cry from the claimed maximum of 21Mbps. It is nice to see the upload speed approach the 2Mbps range, though, which is certainly handy if you’re going to be uploading any of that 720p video you’ll be shooting. This is nowhere near 4G LTE, but for a tablet, it does the job just fine.

Conclusion

Considering that we are on the eve of Kal-El, it’s harder to recommend a current Honeycomb tablet like the Galaxy Tab 10.1. You can’t get it in certain countries and I can see why Apple would say that it’s a little too similar to the iPad in some regards. Even so, the Galaxy Tab 10.1 is a seriously solid tablet with an attractively slim profile, decent performance, and a svelte user interface.

If you’re looking at current dual core Honeycomb tabs, though, I would still take the Eee Pad Transformer over this, if only for the added flexibility of the keyboard dock. In general, I like the Samsung over the Motorola Xoom and LG Optimus Pad, but that could be because of the brighter screen and overall better-looking package.

Guide to Using Your Android Phone

Ready to get started with your Android phone? This walk-through will have you up and running in no time.

Android can do a lot for you-but you have to know where to begin. Compared to the iPhone's cut-and-dried interface, the Android operating system gives you ample room for customization and control. Here's a step-by-step guide to making the most of your Android phone's many features.

The Desktop
The first thing you'll notice about Android is that its desktop differs somewhat from those on other smartphone platforms. You have a lot of freedom to customize the Android desktop-and you aren't limited to four simple rows of perfectly aligned square icons. As a result, you can customize the Android desktop to reflect your interests, and you can make it as full and dynamic as you like.

The Android desktop is composed of multiple homescreen panels. Depending on the version of Android that your phone uses and on whether your device has a specialized overlay such as MotoBlur, you may have five to seven home-screen panels.

When you power up your phone for the first time, you'll see the main homescreen panel. This panel is typically centered, and you can access additional panels on either side of the main one by swiping your finger left or right. What goes on the homescreens is up to you. You can fill the space with any combination of shortcuts, widgets, and folders.

How to Read QR Codes With a Smartphone

Ever wonder what those weird black-and-white square codes are? Here's how to read them with an iPhone, a BlackBerry, or an Android smartphone.

Nowadays, you can find QR (quick-response) codes on everything. These odd-looking, black-and-white, pixelated designs were originally used by the automotive industry, but today they are most often found in magazines, newspapers, and ads.

QR codes offer an efficient way to create links to websites, but they can also store text, phone numbers, email addresses, or calendar events, or send SMS messages. Here are some tips on how to use a QR app to access the data you want.

First, you need a QR-code app and a smartphone or tablet equipped with a camera. iOS users should check out RedLaser. Android fans can try either RedLaser or QR Droid, and BlackBerry users will like QR Code Scanner Pro. All of these apps are free to download, and each one should handle any standard QR code just fine.

When you launch your app of choice, you'll see that your phone's camera is activated, with an on-screen framing guide. Line up the camera on your device with the QR code you want to scan, and hold the device steady until the app can read the code in front of it.

RedLaser (for Android and iOS) can read QR codes as well as bar codes.RedLaser (for Android and iOS) can read QR codes as well as bar codes.

For the best results, aim your device squarely at the code, and not at an angle. Try to minimize any glare from stray light sources, and scan the code in an evenly lit environment. If the code is in direct sunlight, you may need to cover it with your hand for the app to read it properly.

When the app has recognized the QR code, it will beep and display the info the code contains, or launch your Web browser to take you to a designated URL.

You can use most QR-code apps for reading bar codes, too, which can be convenient for in-store price checks. Scanning a product’s bar code with RedLaser will bring up an item description, as well as a list of prices from online merchants that also sell that item.

In addition, the QR Droid app lets you create your own codes. This feature makes it easy for you to create a QR code from your own contact information, for instance; other people can then scan your code and instantly transfer your information to their phones, which would save you a few bucks on business cards.

Have your own QR code tips and tricks? Share them in the comments!

Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 (Wi-Fi)

Bigger isn't always better. The Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 is pretty much just the Galaxy Tab 10.1 ($499, 3.5 stars), minus 1.2 inches. It's a shrunk-down version of Samsung's flagship tablet, at a slightly shrunk-down price: $469 instead of $499. We judge it a slightly better deal all around and one of the best Android tablets, although the Apple iPad 2 ($499, 4.5 stars) is still our top tablet choice.

Physical Design and Networking
Samsung is currently making the best-looking Android tablets in the business, although its tablets look too much like the iPad for some Apple lawyers' comfort. The Galaxy Tab 8.9 is no exception; it's a black and silver slab with no physical buttons on the front, just a bright and somewhat-reflective 1280-by-800-pixel display; the same resolution as the larger panel on the Galaxy Tab 10.1. Since the 8.9 is a smaller screen, the pixels are denser, which is more pleasing to the eye.


The Tab 8.9 is very slim, and relatively light at 15.7 ounces and 9.1 by 6.2 by .33 inches. There are power and volume buttons on the top, along with a 3.2-megapixel camera on the back and a 2-megapixel camera on the front. The back is a smooth gray plastic; you can't open up the tablet to replace the battery. On the bottom, along with the stereo speakers, is the single port, a proprietary docking port.

A Wi-Fi-only tablet, there's no 3G/4G option for the Tab 8.9. You do get Bluetooth, which supports both mono and stereo audio, and built-in GPS. In my tests, the 6100 mAh battery powered the tablet for a very good 8 hours, 15 minutes hours of video playback.

Performance, OS, and Apps
Just like Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1—and a number of other current Android tablets—the 8.9 runs Honeycomb 3.1 on an Nvidia Tegra 2 processor. Benchmark performance is identical to the 10.1 and to many other Tegra 2-based tablets. I didn't encounter any bugs, problems, or major slowdowns in my testing. But there's no schedule for an Android 3.2 update, according to Samsung, so you should treat this as an Android 3.1 device. The company has dressed up the interface with TouchWiz, a set of widgets and interface extensions that seem to slow the tablet down a bit, but make some activities more convenient.

Samsung throws a bunch of default widgets onto the seven home screens, which I like because it makes the tablet appear to be more than just a blank slate. Most of the built-in apps have had subtle aesthetic redesigns. The Mini Apps Tray is especially welcome: It's a set of six frequently used apps/widgets which can pop up from the bottom of the screen. For more on TouchWiz, check out our review of the Galaxy Tab 10.1.

Thus far, Google's Android Market for Honeycomb isn't a winner on tablet apps, showing too many apps that run poorly on tablets. So along with the standard Google stuff, Samsung has packed this slate with tablet-centric stores: its own 7digital-powered music store, both Samsung's and Google's video stores, and even Samsung's own app store. As an Nvidia Tegra 2 tablet, the Galaxy Tab also works with Nvidia's Tegra Zone game store.

Unfortunately, none of these stores solve Honeycomb tablets' most critical problem: not enough apps. Samsung's app store, for instance, only has from one to five apps in each of its categories. Samsung insists thousands of phone apps run well on its tablet, but thousands of others don't, and there's no guide to distinguish them. That makes all Honeycomb tablets far inferior to the iPad with its 90,000+ well-tailored, tablet-specific apps.

Seven-inch tablets running Honeycomb 3.2, such as the Acer Iconia Tab A100 ($329, 4 stars), get around this problem somewhat by presenting phone apps better than those with larger screens. But bigger tablets without Honeycomb 3.2's zoom mode give you ugly interfaces when you try to run many apps designed for Android phones.

The Galaxy Tab syncs contacts and calendars with Samsung's Kies software on PCs, and lets you drag and drop files in Windows Explorer onto the tablet. But Mac users should beware: There is no Mac USB compatibility here.

Multimedia
There are lots of media options to fill the Tab 8.9's 13.1GB of free storage. (You get no memory card slot.) Samsung provides the aforementioned 7digital-powered music store where songs average a dollar each, and a more promising video store where TV shows cost $1.99, but you can get a bunch of children's and reality programming for a penny. I downloaded an episode of "Avatar" (the kids' show, not the movie) and it looked sharp.

All of our sample files played on the Tab, both music and video, and sounded unusually good through the device's stereo speakers. The Tab also includes a pair of earbuds, but it has both a standard 3.5-mm headphone jack and Bluetooth, so you can use whatever headphones you have lying around.

There's one false note here, though: There's no video out, so you can't play your movies on a big screen. Samsung advertises a dock with HDMI out but it's not included with the tablet; the only port here is the unique dock port, and the only cable you get in the box ends in a male USB plug.

Streaming video options are mixed. The TV.com app is available, but Hulu and Netflix, notably, aren't.
The Tab's two cameras are both of very good quality. The 3.2-megapixel camera on the back takes razor-sharp, if not terribly quick photos at 1.1 seconds of shutter delay. The 2-megapixel camera on the front is similarly sharp. Both cameras record 720P HD video.

Conclusions
The Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 is really just a tweak of the existing 10.1-inch Tab, but that tweak makes it a bit more appealing. It's a little more portable and a little less expensive, without losing a pixel of screen resolution, a hertz of processor speed, or a byte of storage.

That said, we have the same problem with this tablet that we do with most high-end Android tablets this size: It's going up directly against the iPad, which has far more apps and a stronger ecosystem. Seven-inch Android 3.2 tablets at least have the benefits of being more portable and having phone apps look decent in zoomed mode. But it's hard to argue why the masses, when presented with this device and an iPad, should pick the Tab 8.9. If you're not an Apple fan, though, and you want the thinnest Android tablet you can get, the Tab 8.9 is a solid choice.

Sync Picasa on Your Android device

Picasa Web is one of the world’s most widely used Cloud application provided by Google to store, retrieve and share your pictures anywhere on any device. But when it comes for Android device which is also powered by Google should have some benefits.



Yes, now you can Sync your Picasa Web Album to your Android devices so that you can upload, share and view picture and videos from your Android device itself. Here we will explain in a step-by-step procedure of doing it.

Note:
1. We are using Samsung Galaxy Tab here to demonstrate but our procedure is the same for all Android Devices.
2. We are using UPPER CASE letters below for making User-Readability efficient.

Step 1: Hit the “MENU” button and then Open “SETTINGS”.
Step 2: Scroll till you come across “ACCOUNT and SYNC” option and select it.

Step 3: You have already set your Google Account during the time of your Android device initialization, so you should now see your Google Account listed there, and do press it.
Step 4: On the following entries search for “SYNC PICASA WEB ALBUMS” and make a check on the checkbox, if it is not already checked. It will take up few minutes to complete the process of Synchronization to your device.

Step 5: That’s it you have done with Synchronization of Picasa Web Album with your Android device and you can find all your images being imported in “GALLERY” Folder available in the Gallery Application on your device.

Now you have got a special power of Uploading, Sharing, Managing from the PC’s Browser or even from the Browser of your Android device and with the help of Google +(Plus) Account.
Exploit your power to the Web World. Let your friends know your powers powered by Google.