GADGETS & GIZMOS

Voice-Activated System

If you work at home and use Microsoft Outlook, a $300 product called ArialPhone might make life easier. The odd-looking setup combines digital cordless phone technology, voice-activated dialing and computer software that can quickly grab phone numbers.

To make it work, you connect a mini-base station to your computer, load software onto your computer and plug the mini-base station into a phone line. You use a wireless headset to issue verbal commands to ArialPhone.

A typical exchange might go like this: You say, “Call Jim Smith,” and ArialPhone asks, “Do you want to call Jim Smith?” If you say yes, ArialPhone would say, “At which location do you want to call Jim Smith, home or mobile?” When you answer, it dials the number.

The voice recognition technology is not perfect, and ArialPhone admits that upfront. To remedy that, you can customize ArialPhone by typing in phonetic spellings for difficult names.