Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich features for medical professionals

Where does Google get all these strange names for the Android operating system? For one thing, they're following the alphabet. The most recent versions have been G, H, I:

• Gingerbread
• Honeycomb
• Ice Cream Sandwich

Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) is the latest version of the Android platform for phones, tablets, and more. It builds on the things people love most about Android — easy multitasking, rich notifications, customizable home screens, resizable widgets, and deep interactivity — and adds powerful new ways of communicating and sharing.

Let's look at some of these new features that could be very helpful for medical professionals who rely on their smartphones each day:

Powerful voice input engine
Android 4.0 introduces a powerful new voice input engine that offers a continuous "open microphone" experience and streaming voice recognition. The new voice input engine lets you dictate the text you want, for as long as you want, using the language you want. You can speak continously for a prolonged time, even pausing for intervals if needed, and dictate punctuation to create correct sentences. As the voice input engine enters text, it underlines possible dictation errors in gray. After dictating, you can tap the underlined words to quickly replace them from a list of suggestions.

Face Unlock
Android 4.0 introduces a completely new approach to securing a device, making each person's device even more personal — Face Unlock is a new screen-lock option that lets you unlock your device with your face. It takes advantage of the device front-facing camera and state-of-the-art facial recognition technology to register a face during setup and then to recognize it again when unlocking the device. Just hold your device in front of your face to unlock, or use a backup PIN or pattern.

Given that data security is so important, is the face lock/unlock a safer option for medical professionals?

You can learn more about Android 4.0 here.