Category Archives: Android

Android, iOS, Mobile, Natural Language Understanding, Nina, Nuance, Nuance Communications, Speech recognition, Tools, Voice

Nuance Introduces Nina, the Virtual Assistant for Mobile Customer Service Apps

Nuance Communications today introduced Nina, the virtual assistant for mobile customer service apps. With Nina, companies can add speech-based virtual assistant capabilities to their existing iOS and Android mobile apps, enhancing the self-service experience for their customers. Nina combines Nuance speech recognition, Text-to-Speech (TTS), voice biometrics, and Natural Language Understanding (NLU) technology hosted in the cloud to deliver an interactive user experience that not only understands what is said, but also can identify who is saying it.

Nuance also announced that USAA, a leading financial services provider that serves members of the U.S. military, veterans and their families, has adopted the virtual assistant for use within its popular mobile app. A pilot is planned for August and the functionality will launch to all USAA members early next year.

“USAA’s innovative solutions are designed to make life easier for our highly mobile military service members, and increasingly for all members who now expect to get things done when, where and how they want,” said Neff Hudson, assistant vice president of emerging channels for USAA. “We believe that the virtual assistant has tremendous potential to make it simpler, faster and more satisfying for our members to manage their financial affairs on their mobile devices.”

Nina is significant because it is the first virtual assistant for mobile customer service apps to incorporate both speech recognition and voice biometrics into a single integrated solution. Nina is also the first solution that provides an open software development kit (SDK) to support the rapid integration of virtual assistant capabilities into existing mobile applications. In addition, Nina is the first to allow organizations to brand their own virtual assistant persona, including the visual appearance and implementation of optional custom TTS voices.

“Nina is a watershed innovation for the automated customer service industry, not only because it brings the virtual assistant directly into an app, but because it raises the bar through its level of interactive dialog and language understanding,” said Robert Weideman, executive vice president and general manager of the Nuance Enterprise Division. “Nina provides our customers a major competitive differentiator by enabling more successful self-service through their mobile apps. We are especially pleased to further our partnership with USAA, a company known for its innovation and approach to delivering a premier mobile customer service experience to its members.”


Android, Google, Google Chrome OS, Google Compute Engine, Google Drive, High Performance Computing, Internet Technology, Kansas City Missouri, Mobile, Motorola, Networking, Telecommunications Industry, Television, Video

Google Fiber Has Far-reaching Implications

Image representing Google as depicted in Crunc...

Reading this post on Google’s low-cost, super-fast fiber-to-the-home initiative (makes me sort of wish I lived in Kansas City) brought to mind all the other Google products and initiatives that might be empowered by it. Go read it, then come back here and consider:

Chrome OS: it takes a long time to make a new operating system and it looks trivial today, but with widely available gigabit internet at the household and small business level it begins to look like a realistic “the network is the computer” future.

Mobile OS: Google already has that covered with Android.

Add Google Drive: Ubiquitous very high speed connectivity at a low price makes Drive viable for more than backup, sharing and synch. Actually synch becomes easier if the only copy is on a server.

Add Google Compute Engine: A thin-client netbook running Chrome OS, or Android on tablets and handsets, become more appealing if you  can quickly access network-based computing resources for high-performance computing tasks like video transcoding.

Add Google Voice: consider all those hypothetical hotspots. Combine with Android and Voice. Can a Google competitor to cell phone providers be far behind, one that leverages the coming Google network? All it would take is a couple extra capabilities in the fiber/WiFi box that seems inevitable. And don’t forget they now own Motorola, a top-notch mobile phone company.

YouTube/Google TV: Already dipping its toe into original programming, and fast fiber means TV will change dramatically.

Living In the cloud would become a real option for everyday consumers. What about effects on professionals and small businesses?

And what about those other seemingly sci-fi projects, self driving cars and Glass? Hey, if the car drives itself my brain then has the bandwidth for augmented reality. How might they benefit from the ability to hop from fiber-connected WiFi hotspot to hotspot?

All this based on a good search engine algorithm, and then ads next to search results? Who’d a thunk it?


Android, appMobi, Free, iOS, Mobile, PhoneGap, Tools

storeView Offers Free Cross Platform App Store Analytics Service for HTML5, PhoneGap Developers

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appMobi today announced storeView, a new, free, cloud-based reporting service for PhoneGap and hybrid HTML5 app developers that aggregates and displays detailed app analytics across all the most popular app stores in a single dashboard.“As game and app developers have begun to leverage HTML5’s ‘write once, deploy everywhere’ power, the issue of app store fragmentation has emerged as these apps have become successful across multiple stores and platforms”

With the explosion of new cross platform app development, developers are increasingly posting their apps to multiple app stores. Each of the app stores uses a different method to report sales and activity, creating massive fragmentation. This “App Store Fragmentation” issue prevents developers from understanding app performance and trends information that every developer needs to achieve maximum profitability. With the release of storeView, appMobi has stepped up to provide a completely free service that solves this issue for PhoneGap and HTML5 hybrid app developers.

“As game and app developers have begun to leverage HTML5’s ‘write once, deploy everywhere’ power, the issue of app store fragmentation has emerged as these apps have become successful across multiple stores and platforms,” said Sam Abadir, appMobi CTO. “We experienced this issue ourselves with Boom Town, the first massively cross platform HTML5 game, currently available in 7 different app stores. We also realized just how little information is provided by many of the app stores. For example, the only analytic provided by Apple’s App Store and Google Play is download count – that’s all they can tell you about your app! We created storeView for internal use and found it to be an invaluable tool. Now we’re giving it away for anyone who’s using HTML5 to create apps.”

storeView is a completely free cloud service. There will never be any charge for setting up an account, for adding apps to the system, nor for the number of users a particular app has. Adding storeView analytics to any HTML5-based app is extremely easy, with the addition of a single include file and just one line of JavaScript code. storeView provides deep, granular insight into the performance and activity of developers’ apps in each of today’s leading app stores, including Apple, Android (Google Play), Facebook, Amazon, Chrome, Mozilla and Barnes & Noble.

To view storeView analytics, developers simply log into their account and select from a variety of reports. The available reports include monthly uniques on all platforms, iOS starts by device, Android starts by device, app starts by platform, and 30 day uniques vs. app starts. Armed with this important data, developers can make informed decisions on allocating development and marketing resources, uncover unseen relationships between devices and platforms, and most importantly, optimize app store profits.

PhoneGap and HTML5 Developers can sign up for storeView free at http://www.appmobi.com/storeView.


Android, Apperian, Application lifecycle management, Blackberry, iOS, Mobile, Mobile application development

Apperian Rolls Out New Mobile Application Lifecycle Management Architecture

Apperian (www.apperian.com) today announced the latest release of its Enterprise App Services Environment (EASE), which will significantly broaden the capabilities of mobile application management (MAM).

Businesses have outgrown the basic functionality of “create, deploy and manage apps,” which used to define mobile application management. They now require a cloud platform that covers the full mobile application lifecycle management architecture, ranging from inspection of applications when they are imported for the first time, to socialization functions that foster better app creation and adoption. EASE now provides all of this in a modular solution, and all functions can be managed from a single admin console.

Aiming to provide businesses with the best products and services to meet their mobility requirements, EASE supports both native and third-party extensions, which are plugged into an “AppBus” in the platform. There are six core slots supported by the AppBus that cover all functions required for complete mobile application lifecycle management:

  • Inspect – Malware detection, automation, validation and signing
    services
  • Protect – Geo-fencing, data encryption, app delete and device
    level management
  • Extend – Dynamic policy, remote control, silent install,
    private app network and single sign-on
  • Personalize – Role-based apps, custom branding, targeted
    content and recommendations
  • Analyze – Adoption and usage of apps, compliance reports, app
    inventory and performance
  • Engage – Sharing and liking apps, app rating, crowdsourcing and
    gamification features

“Because the EASE platform is modular, IT managers can easily apply the exact capabilities they require for their mobile environment. This approach surpasses the current capabilities of mobile device management, which are out of date and cannot effectively support today’s world of employee owned devices, and the maturing application lifecycle,” said Carlos Montero-Luque, Apperian’s Senior Vice President, Engineering. “EASE brings together all the components and services required to support the full mobile application lifecycle, all managed through the EASE Admin Portal. The simplicity and elegance of this architecture significantly improves the development, adoption and security of enterprise mobile apps and devices.”

Apperian, Inc. is a mobile application management company. The Apperian EASE platform delivers enterprise mobility services that enable many of the world’s largest corporations to securely deploy and manage mobile apps for iOS, Android and Blackberry. Apperian is empowering the liberated enterprise to support the BYOD revolution.