HTC teases 'dog translator' app

Update: HTC has confirmed that this is in fact just a joke, and they're not working on voice control tech for dogs or humans.

Original: The Galaxy S III might be "designed for humans," but HTC has just published photographic evidence of what seems to be an attempt to court the canine smartphone market. The manufacturer posted the image above on its official Facebook page, showing the HTC One X chatting it up with an unusually smartphone literate dog.

OK, so HTC probably isn't going into the field of animal behaviorology anytime soon, which means this is likely a not-so-subtle hint that HTC is set to join LG, Samsung and Apple in launching its own voice assistant app (OK, a Siri clone). Based on the image above, it looks like HTC's app will be able to manage appointments (such as walkies) and other general queries, much like Apple and Samsung's offerings. The big question will be how well the app's voice recognition features actually work, as we found this to be a major sticking point for S Voice, the Galaxy S III's voice control effort.

In any case, we'll be interested to see what HTC comes up with in this area, and how much of its Sense UI it's able to augment with the new voice-controlled tech.

Source: HTC on Facebook

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