Vlingo is a software application that runs on Blackberry smartphones; it provides a complete voice-enabled interface to the device. Top that, iPhone.
Send a friend a text message without typing. Just speak, verify and send. Or find stuff. Say, for example, "pizza places in Pittsburgh." Your phone figures out what you want, finds it and shows you how to get there. No tapping, no thumbs, just good old speaking.
See how it works in this Vlingo demonstration video:
(Vlingo blackberry demonstration video)
"Just a few months ago, vlingo was selected to voice-enable Yahoo! oneSearch™, which showed the world just how quick and easy mobile Web search can be with the power of voice," said Dave Grannan, CEO of vlingo. "Vlingo takes this technology beyond Web search into everyday applications that are now instantly more usable and easier to find because you only need to think about one button and a few spoken words. Vlingo believes that we can immediately improve the way every person interacts with their wireless device and the BlackBerry platform is the perfect place to start our aggressive expansion strategy here in the U.S. and abroad."
It turns out that science fiction Grandmasters think the same way. Frederik Pohl's fabled joymaker from his 1965 novel The Age of the Pussyfoot just keeps getting closer; it was a networked PDA that was operated entirely with voice recognition.
...the programmed software includes procedures for translating most normal variations of voice, idiom, accent, and other variable modalities into a computer-oriented sim-script and thence into the mathematical expressions on which the computers operate. As long as your personal joymaker is within reception range of your voice, you may communicate via other shared-time transponders if you wish.
(Read more about Pohl's voice-enabled smartphone)
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