At Samsung’s unveiling of its new Galaxy S4 phone Thursday, the company announced a driving assistant feature called Galaxy S Voice Drive.
According to Samsung’s director of product marketing, Ryan Bidan, the S Voice Drive is activated when you get into your car. The feature also allows the S4 to sync to the car via a Bluetooth connection.
While driving, the S Voice Drive allows you to make calls, send texts and emails, get directions and check the weather, all in “Drive Mode,” without using your hands. If you receive a call, email or message while you’re on the road, S Voice Drive will alert you. The system can also read the message to you, and will write your dictated message.
S Voice Drive also simplifies the S4’s interface, making it easier to read with bigger fonts. When in Drive Mode, the interface breaks down into five icons representing each function that’s available while driving, reports CNET.
Most importantly though, Samsung has now given us yet another thing to yell at our mobile devices. Instead of calling “Siri,” or saying “Okay, Glass,” the Galaxy has a whole new, wildly innovative call to action for its flagship phone. To activate the voice recognition function, say “Hi, Galaxy,” and the phone will bring up S Voice Drive. This should be a pretty good voice prompt to activate the system. Of course, we’ll have to wait and see how well it holds up, and if we’ll be seeing any epically bad (read: hilarious) misunderstandings from the S Voice Drive.
