Dragon Go!, the all-purpose voice recognition search app from Nuance, is getting a significant upgrade today. In fact, it's almost a preview of some of the functionality we suspect will be in iOS5.

The free app lets you speak conversationally with your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad. Say things like "What's the best steakhouse in Kansas City", or "Find me some pictures of Lady Gaga", and the app will parse what you said and nearly always return useable results.

The update, which should hit the App Store today, adds many more options, including the ability to launch popular movie and TV streaming services; get direct access to more of the most popular names in mobile content, like Spotify; get answers to the toughest of questions from Wolfram|Alpha and Ask.com; and, find friends on Google+.

I tried some of the new functions, and was impressed. For instance, I said "Watch Mad Men on Netflix," and Dragon Go initiated a Google search. When I clicked on the resulting link, my Netflix app launched and the show started. I also successfully searched TUAW for articles and had it define words using Dictionary.com. For apps that require a login, you'll have to set up Dragon Go! to link with those apps, but that's not a difficult task.

Vlad Sejnoha, chief technology officer at Nuance said "We're deeply invested in continuing to evolve Dragon Go! with new features, more content providers and richer app integration, and ultimately opening new doors for the consumer mobile destination experience. This is another step towards the mobile semantic web, and we've just gotten started."

These new services join Google, Bing, Yahoo, Wikipedia, Twitter, YouTube and many others that were already built into the app. I find Dragon Go! and Siri (now owned by Apple) to be two of the best demos for the iPhone around. If you already have Dragon Go! you should see the update today. If you don't have it, download it and impress yourself and your friends.

Gallery: Dragon Go! updated with significant new features

Dragon Go for iPhone gets smarter originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 29 Sep 2011 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Does anyone else get a little freaked out when they read this kind of thing?

What if all businesses were run like the Oakland A’s under Billy Beane as portrayed by Brad Pitt in the new movie Moneyball? Instead of making personnel decisions based on preconceived pedigrees, what if managers used a more scientific approach to assess talent? What if managers were able to make difficult personnel decisions without having to involve a bevy of lawyers and human resources representatives?

Production trumps pedigree

Like scouts, recruiters are tasked with assessing talent for their organizations. And like scouts, recruiters often rely too heavily on a particular pedigree or candidate profile when making hiring decisions. They look to fill job descriptions instead of assessing capabilities and potential--and that’s often a deathblow for career changers. In Moneyball, Beane signed a former catcher to play first base--a position he never played before. He even went so far as to trade the potential All Star he already had playing at the position because he believed the move would give his team the best chance to score more runs--and ultimately win more games.

“Give it to them straight”

This was the advice given by Billy Beane to Peter Brand on how to let a player know he’s been traded, cut, or sent down to the minors. Although it’s never easy to let people know you’re letting them go, most team owners and professional athletes seem to understand it’s a business decision, nothing personal. Sure, feelings still get hurt, but the lack of lawyers and their carefully worded scripts is a rather refreshing break from the way the same process is handled by some businesses. Case in point, the recent and unceremonious ouster of Carol Bartz, former CEO of Yahoo, is a veritable "don't" and an example of what can happen when you're not shooting straight.

Sometimes you have to shake things up

Performance and chemistry are just as important in business as they are in baseball. In Moneyball, Beane was forced to shake things up when a player was undermining team morale. And they responded. As a manager, making such moves is often unavoidable. That can mean moving someone into a different role, to a different department, or if their performance is lacking, cutting them loose altogether. Beane realized he had a problem that needed to be addressed if he was going to have any chance at saving the season, and that’s just what he did.

What if you ran your business like the Oakland A’s under Billy Beane? How might you evaluate potential hires differently? How might you change the way you manage your team?

Pay Shawn's digital tree house a visit at shawngraham.me or continue the conversation on Twitter.

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[Image: Flickr user Thomas Hawk]

These aren't for you—clearly you would never commit such office faux pas. But not everyone is as handsome and clever as you. Thankfully the fellows at Division of Labor have done us a solid and made a series of New Rules of Work posters to teach those other fools how to behave in the modern workplace.

View Entire List ›

It's a fashion faux pas-off! Remember when hammer pants were so in style even Disney heroes sported them? And how dumb they look now? Hipsters, behold your future.

Source: theoatmeal.com

As a long-time aficionado of office supplies, I feel qualified to review this wonderful new (to me, at least) product. These über-Post-its measure 4" x 4" and are a different kettle of fish entirely from others I've used. Namely their Lilliputian 1.5" x 2", 2" x 3", and 3" x 3" brethren. These have an entirely different heft and presence under your pencil or pen or Sharpie.

And I like that these notes are lined, because I'm now using them as an aide-mémoire regarding what's upcoming each day on my blog Book Of Joe. There are just enough lines on them for my eight daily posts and their working titles.

Finally, by combining them with an ultra-fine point retractable Sharpie, I've found note-taking heaven on Earth.

[For those who prefer naked Post-Its, you can get lineless 4"x6" ones from Amazon.]

Post-It Super Sticky Notes
4"x4"
$11 for six pads

Available from Amazon

Manufactured by Post-It

The first thing I do when booking a flight is turn to airfare aggregator Hipmunk. Hipmunk is a site that, like other fare aggregators, uses your starting destination, final destination, and a range of dates to determine the lowest available fare amongst competing airlines.

Though Hipmunk is the newcomer to the fare aggregating scene, it has quickly become my favorite (I still rely on and recommend Kayak as it is useful for making comparisons). Specifically, Hipmunk's site designers have perfected the art of limiting the information on screen to the essentials: flight times, length of layovers, number of connecting flights, and, of course, price, and presenting it in a way that is easy to make sense of and read.

The UI is built so that you can quickly organize and deduce not only the cheapest flight, but also a happy balance between cost and ease of travel (for example, they rank flights by "agony"). Their site, unlike Kayak, sees fairly frequent updates and it was recently improved with the incorporation of built-in tabs; a subtle killer feature that allows you to compare a wide range of dates and airports without having to overwhelm your browser.

Unfortunately for us consumers, the airlines quickly realized that the transparency of their pricing system wasn't necessarily helping their bottom line. What that means is that you won't find all the airlines on either Hipmunk or Kayak (Jetblue, Southwest, Virgin, and Spirit are a few airlines that require the use of a proprietary site).

Furthermore, there is a limit to what sites like this can do. They haven't been all that effective during peak travel times, or for last minute flights. I find that it's also good to remind myself that spending hours and hours looking for cheaper fares quickly passes the point of diminishing returns.

Looking for cheap airfares is never going to be a particularly pleasant experience, but Hipmunk has, for me at least, made it bearable.

[Note: Both Hipmunk and Kayak now have iOS apps that are good, but not quite as flexible as the website. In a pinch they are highly recommended.--OH]

Hipmunk
http://hipmunk.com

MaryAnn Spoto / New Jersey Online:
Judge rules use of GPS to track a cheating spouse is not an invasion of privacy  —  Beware, all you cheating husbands and wives.  The use of a GPS device to track your whereabouts is not an invasion of privacy in New Jersey, a state appellate court panel ruled today.