Siri, watch your back! There’s a new smartphone concierge in town: 3D Pal.
3D Pal is a virtual assistant is an app that combines Google Voice Search’s voice recognition software with a 3D animated, interactive avatar. Like Siri, or any other voice-based app, you can ask the app for nearly anything from setting an alarm to asking what the current weather forecast is in Tallahassee, Florida. The key factor that sets this app apart from the rest of its kind is the ability to customize the avatar’s features. Customizable options include a choice over 100 different voices, including a Chinese female’s voice and a British male’s voice, and accessories such as hairstyles, glasses and facial hair. You can further personalize the avatar by taking a headshot using your phone’s camera or uploading a picture from your photo gallery and generate a 3D face to emulate your likeness. This app features an application instructional guide that shows new users what to say to prompt certain commands and functions.
Being the first of its kind among voice-based mobile applications, it’s impressive and not bad for what it is. I like how the developers fused Google’s voice recognition system with the app’s 3D animation. Two of the more strong features this 3D Pal possesses are how well it generates 3D, touch-sensitive renderings of people’s faces and its multi-funcutionality. The developers of this app did a wonderful job with the 3D animation. It looks eerily life-like, especially if you import a picture of yourself or someone else into the app, has a great response time and great visual/audio synchronization, and is realistic like an actual person such as being aware of what time of day it is through a variety of greetings installed into the AI component.
Although the 3D Pal virtual assistant will respond to your questions, Siri still has the upper hand because it is more versatile. Because this app was designed more for utilitarian purposes such as setting an alarm or doing a simple Google search, there is a very good chance that you will not be able to get 3D Pal to do silly tasks like tell you a joke. This is far from a deal breaker, though. When it comes to the app’s multi-functionality, 3D Pal has the ability to do numerous tasks including updating social media profiles, adding events to calendars, texting and emailing capabilities, open websites, playing audio and video files, searching the latest news articles, open the GPS to look for a certain location and converting currency. Although this app has the ability to a lot, it would be more impressive if the 3D avatar were to perform certain functions itself rather than opening a browser window that shows the answer you were looking for. For instance, if you were to prompt 3D Pal to solve a calculation, the app will open the calculator browser itself rather than to simply tell you. Speaking of the browsers, the in-app browser could use a slight facelift so it won’t look so flat and unappealing.
Overall, 3D Pal is handy, all-in-one app that is worth downloading with its cool and surprising customization features. Consider it as a Swiss Army knife for your smartphone. The free 3D Pal Lite version and the full version of 3D Pal are available to download in the Google Play app store.
App Name: 3D Pal
Developer: IndoIrish Software Solutions Ireland Ltd.
Market: Google Play
