We learned a lot in the process of building it.

Touchless Control was thrilling to launch and has been even more exciting to evolve. But the process of building the feature was an experience for us, too! For today’s Download—our regular spotlight on Motorola software—we want to share what we learned in developing Touchless Control:

• Everyone is different—especially in the way they speak. We set out to build a deeply personal, super useful phone experience for our users—and we quickly realized that for a device to recognize a voice command, we had to consider all of the different dialects across the world that our phones support (English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, and Italian). For every language, we gathered 100-200 people of various genders and regional accents to help us build a reference dictionary. This dictionary would provide the foundation for the technology. Then we tested the software against audio clips from TV shows. The last step was ruthless trial and error until we could refine the product to work for everyone. It turns out, to make something truly personal, you do have to make it work for everyone!
• Toys can yield insight. Touchless Control was the first hands-free voice control ever offered on a mobile phone. So during the development phase we tried to find products in other industries that used similar voice command technology. We found two, both in the toy industry: a blue, one-eyed Alien alarm clock that could listen to you speak and a little Christmas ornament sold on TV that would automatically play holiday songs when you called out to it. A good toy provides endless joy.
• It’s all in the trigger. The trigger—or the “OK Google Now” phrase that activates Touchless Control—is a crucial cornerstone in getting always-on software to work. It had to be very distinctive, so it wouldn’t be confused with other ubiquitous phrases used in everyday conversation, and it had to be easy for the device to pick up. In linguistic terms, this meant the trigger had to be at least four syllables (ideally at least five) and include unique sounds. We worked with several professional linguists and tested dozens of potential triggers. Some random words like “magic” and “genie” performed really well. But ultimately “OK Google Now” worked the best and made sense for our Android-based software.
• Some women tend to say their w’s with an h. We didn’t even hear it ourselves at first, really. But when we looked into the audio data, sure enough, we learned that a significant number English-speaking women tend to begin their w sound with an h. Quite elegant.

Today we’re inspired to see that the majority of Moto X users are actively using Touchless Control with a significant number using it more than five times a day. Google searches are the most often used command followed by voice-activated calls. The touchless features are especially popular among our younger users.

One of the most frequent questions we received for last week’s Hangout on Air with Punit was whether we were continuing to develop new Touchless Control features and commands. The short answer is yes. We’ve learned a lot in building this software from the beginning, and we look forward to launching future features and commands in the coming months. 

Let us know what you’d like to see in future iterations by telling us on our Google+, Facebook, or Twitter using the hashtag #motodownload. 

Posted by Richard Hung, Product Manager

Here’s the latest Download:

What’s Up with Touchless Control - Hands tied? Our latest update to Touchless Control introduces a new convenient command: Just say “OK Google Now, What’s up?”—your phone will read aloud your latest notifications. 

Migrate What You Want - Our Motorola Migrate app has been a hit for users transferring their information from their old phone to their new Moto X, Moto G, or Droid phones. But we heard from some people that it would be even more useful if they could select what content to transfer. With this update, we’ve made this possible for users moving from an old Android phone to choose what kind of content they want to migrate. This update also automatically imports SIM contacts to your preferred Google account and makes it easier to transfer the content you want if your old phone’s content is bigger than your new phone’s available memory (nothing like a little early Spring cleaning!).

Getting Smart with SIMs - Here’s a little treat for users in Latin America and India who have Moto G that supports dual SIMs: With the latest KitKat upgrade, we’ve included a new feature called Automatic SIM Selection. If you typically select the SIM for every outgoing call, this feature will suggest the preferred SIM to use based on the one that you’ve used to call friends in the past. Moto G users with dual SIMs can simply switch the feature on in their Settings. For more information, check out the FAQs.

Customize Your Active Display - Active Display quietly displays what you need to know with just a touch—and with this update you can now enable and disable notification vibrations using your phone’s Sound settings. Also, did you know that you can control which apps send notifications to Active Display? Just go to Settings > Active Display to choose what apps are important enough to you.

An Enhanced Assist - Motorola Assist—which recognizes when you shouldn’t be bothered and helps you out while you’re driving—now works even smarter to adapt to your working style in meetings. This update allows you to block off personal time in your calendar but still take calls. We’ve also made an important enhancements in Bluetooth connectivity that allow even more users to integrate Assist with their car’s built-in Bluetooth carkit.

We’re continuing to sprint after these evolutions, quickly innovating on both user-facing experience and backend technologies. Please let us know what you think of our latest on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook.

Posted by Punit Soni, Product Management

What better way to kick off The Download—a regular feature that gives you the scoop on the many software updates we are rapidly cranking out. In addition to the roll out of KitKat on Moto G, our software team has been busy as elves in a workshop shipping new features for you.

Here’s the latest Download, issue 1:

Android KitKat Comes to Moto G - Our KitKat family is expanding! When we launched Moto G last month, we committed to delivering Android, KitKat, to devices by early 2014. We are thrilled to start delivering on that promise early. Starting today, we are rolling out Android 4.4.2 to Moto G phones bought on Motorola.com or Amazon.com in the U.S. KitKat will come to other Moto G carriers and regions soon as well. This latest version of Android brings some cool new features, including printing emails and photos from your phone. Read our release notes for detailed information.

This update continues our effort to get our users the latest Android software as fast as humanly possible. We began by pushing KitKat out to Moto X users on Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile, just weeks after Google announced the new OS—and our most recent expansion over the past few weeks includes Moto X on US Cellular and Sprint and DROID ULTRA, DROID MAXX, and DROID MINI. We also started to roll out the software in Brazil for retail devices. More carriers and regions will follow very soon.

For more information on KitKat and deployment on Motorola devices, check out our software upgrades page.

Enhanced Touchless Control - With our latest update to this feature, customers who use a device PIN to lock their phone can use Touchless Control without entering the PIN first. Don’t worry—no personal information is divulged without a PIN. And, you can also use your voice to enter your PIN. Go to the Google Play Store for more information.

Spreading Holiday Cheer - We’re getting into the holiday spirit! Turn your Moto X running KitKat off and on—and experience a little cheer with our new start-up animation. For those with a Moto G, download the Motorola Boot Services application from the Google Play Store to take part in the animated holiday tidings.

More Camera Goodness for Moto G and DROID - We’re taking the latest Camera features on Moto X on KitKat and making them available for Moto G, DROID MINI, DROID MAXX, and DROID ULTRA. This brings some enhancements photographers will love—such as Drag to Focus and Expose (manual exposure and focus with just a touch), locking exposure during Panoramic shots, and additional language support. Check out the Google Play Store for more information.

Improved Active Display - We’ve squashed some bugs! Active Display—battery-friendly notifications that fade in and out when the phone display is off—is now optimized for KitKat and works better than ever. It’s all part of our mission to listen to our users and iterate quickly. Go to the Google Play Store for more information.

More Kernel Sources! - Over the last few weeks, we released the Android 4.3, Jelly Bean kernel source for Moto G, and yesterday we released Android 4.4, KitKat kernel source for Moto X. Enjoy your custom ROMs!

The Download - Yeah, that is pretty recursive if you ask me. But our last big feature is a regular software blog which provides you with the latest on all the cool, shiny, new features and upgrades that are headed your way. Subscribe in the upper right column to stay up to date on the latest.

The last few months have been quite a wild ride. We are working hard to continually improve the experience on Motorola devices and look forward to hearing from you. Your feedback will be heard and acted on. Feel free to comment here or on our profiles on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook.

Posted by Punit Soni, Product Management

True to the DROID heritage, these new devices continue to pioneer innovative features. We’ve re-engineered the DROIDS from the inside out to enable amazing new software capabilities including: 

Touchless Control: lets you use the phone hands-free even when the device is asleep, allowing you to place phone calls, send texts, find directions, or search the web.

Active Display: provides the information you need to know just by glancing at the phone’s display - for stuff like time, texts, social updates, calendar notices, etc. Active Display subtly lights up a portion of the screen with notifications without having to wake the phone or pick it up.

Quick Capture: DROID can go from pocket to picture in an instant. Just shake to wake by quickly twisting your wrist and tap anywhere on the screen to snap a pic, or press and hold to capture an action sequence with rapid-fire shots.

DROID Zap: the fastest and easiest way to share photos and videos with a friend or a group of friends nearby. Swiping up on a picture instantly shares it with fellow Android users nearby, and to receive, all they need to do is swipe down on their screen.

The new DROID devices help you do things faster and stay connected to what matters most. DROID ULTRA will be available for $199.99 and DROID MAXX for $299.99, with a new two-year customer agreement. DROID MINI is $99.99 and will be available August 22. For more information, visit droiddoes.com.