Andrew Edney reports today that Amulet Devices have now dropped the price of their Voice Remote Control down to $149.00. We reviewed the remote back in December, and generally liked it. The $50 price drop will hopefully help to encourage sales of the device. The price drop was not all that they had to announce though. Amulet Devices have also been busy working to upgrade their software. Perhaps one of the most interesting new features in the software is support for My Movies. The ability to finely control your music library with your voice has always been the Voice Remote Control’s strongest asset. Being able to tap into one of the most popular movie library plug-ins for Windows Media Center is a feature that could be incredibly useful for many potential customers. That’s not the only feature they are working on adding though. Edney reports they are also planning to add the following features:
- EPG search – you can now say “Search for <name>” to find all programs matching <name> in the program guide
- YouTube search – integrated YouTube Leanback player, say “Search YouTube for <name>” to find videos about <name> (freeform dictation) or “Search YouTube for This Music / Song / Movie / Program / Channel” to find YouTube videos relating to what you are currently watching or listening to.
- MyMovies support – now recognizes all movies in the MyMovies database and lets you play them directly using MyMovies, including ISOs, Blu-Ray, etc. that require MyMovies’ external player support. You can also use the SHOW MOVIE command to move directly to a particular title within the MyMovies gallery view.
- New status screen in the Settings page showing what media is available, current speech recognition state, etc.
- New customisable options
If you are a current customer, you can join the software beta test by emailing beta@amuletdevices.com. You can buy the remote for $149.00 now. The new software is expected to be out in April.
Source: Using Windows Home Server
