Nuance powers T-Mobile voice activated Genius button

myTouch 4G Slide users can shout at the phone to wake it up, send texts.

This is a US-only deal for the moment, and only on the myTouch Android-powered smartphone.

When the Hands Free mode is active and the phone is put into an always-listening mode, customers wake it up using speech, and then use voice to hear and send text and email messages, get directions, search the Web and find businesses.

It's all based on Nuance’s natural language voice technology, and is being pitched especially at car drivers.

Michael Thompson, senior vice resident and general manager, Nuance Mobile, said: “Voice has proven to be an incredibly easy, productive and compelling way to engage the most popular applications on T-Mobile myTouch smartphones – and with the new wake up command and music access on the myTouch 4G Slide, it’s gotten even better.

“Nuance and T-Mobile have worked together to enable the deep integration of Nuance’s hybrid embedded-connected speech capabilities, so with just one simple press of a button or spoken wake up command, people get access to the features they want – no apps to search for or menus to browse.”