Comments on: Vlingo: Voice Enable Any Mobile Application

By: Aravind

Aravind — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 14:08:19 +0000

Looks like the recognition may be done on the network side. The app is only responsible for providing the context and audio to the back-end server. For general IM’ing I suspect all the processing can be done a cellphone running at 400MHz max.

By: Jared Blake

Jared Blake — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 23:51:44 +0000

Hello, my LG phone doesn’t have the technology down yet as I finally got frustrated and no longer use the voice command on it. Hopefully this is an improvement and it is as good as the video shows.

Regards, Jared Blake
JDHL Technologies – SEO Experts
SEO Blog – Tips and Techniques

By: Ian Swanson

Ian Swanson — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 16:22:19 +0000

Typical IVR system… Many mobile companies have been using this type of technology.

Gearworks, a B2B LBS provider, has been using voice driven J2ME/Brew applications (complete with API) to capture work orders, time sheet info, and job status from mobile workers for the past 3 years.

Customers include Pepsi and Roto Rooter.

By: trevo

trevo — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 16:18:47 +0000

I’ve been using the Tellme app (FYI – its called a multi-modal app – ie. Voice/Text-in – Text-out) and I simply love it. Now whenever I need to find a local business/restaurant, I just launch the app, and speak the name of my city and business and walla, I get the phone number AND map.

Tellme probably works better because it is limited to the current vocab (limited grammar) (city/state and business) but I think it still uses some guesswork when it comes to business names so in that context it might be similar to Vlingo.

A few startups were working on multi-modal apps during the dot-com days but mobile phones (J2ME) did not support it at that time and unfortunately all of them went under… so I’m glad to see this new crop of startups gaining real traction!

Oh yeah although ScanSoft did not really rename itself Nuance. ScanSoft and Nuance merged and they decided to name the combined entity Nuance… which is not surprising since Nuance is the much better known brand.

By: No Surprise

No Surprise — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 15:43:39 +0000

I not only agree with Andy, but I’d add that if you’ve already accustomed to texting, then you’ll likely continue to text. Vlingo will have a difficult time getting mobile consumers to CHANGE their texting behavior, let alone winning mindshare for voice based mobile search which already has lots of competition.

Based on the video, the Vlingo service works at the prototype level, but it seems to me to be nice to have functionality, not a problem solving application.

By: Andy

Andy — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 14:41:50 +0000

Can’t you just call the person you’re IMing? I mean, you’re carrying a phone. If cell phones had quicker voicemail access and better user interface (something like the iPhone comes to mind, but there could be improvements there too), this wouldn’t be necessary.

By: BeingParents

BeingParents — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 14:15:01 +0000

Early on, Apple realized that appealing to consumer senses will and has yield tremendous profits. Voice embed application will make our lives easier and fun. If it make makes our lives easier and fun it will be a success.

“Beam me up, Scotty!”

By: Ray Renteria

Ray Renteria — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 13:44:20 +0000

I disagree that accuracy is going to be a big problem.

Voice-to-Text has been around for a long time. Even on multi-gigahertz / uber RAM computers, the technology has accuracy challenges. Applying V2T to something with as few resources (memory, cpu, etc) as a mobile device is the very likely exacerbates the problem.

Still, if I can dictate one word at a time then the words that are correct are words I don’t have to type. The ones that are not correct will cause me to do do two things:

1. Allow me to edit them
2. Train *ME* to pronounce certain words more articulately–or at least
in a way that results in the desired behavior.

My opinion: Cool.

–Ray

By: Mitchel

Mitchel — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 11:33:33 +0000

This is a very complex technology. Don’t they take something from Nuance when leaving it? May be Nuance will want to sue them sometime.

By: Alan

Alan — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 11:29:01 +0000

It is interesting to test this technology.

By: Elliot Yates

Elliot Yates — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 09:05:20 +0000

Looks a good technology, though as Anujk said, accuracy is a big issue. From the video, it looked god however

By: A Million Dollar Girls

A Million Dollar Girls — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 08:27:19 +0000

Until today, this kind of voice recognition leaved something to desire…
If this project really works will be a candidate to make lots of money.

By: Anujk

Anujk — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 08:05:47 +0000

hey this is something really good… but accuracy is going to be a big issue…. with different spoken languages…

By: Nick Gonzalez

Nick Gonzalez — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 07:58:05 +0000

No. Since it’s only J2ME and Brew now. I don’t think you can access the iPhone’s voice capabilities through Safari on the iphone, so I think a voice enabled website is also out of the question.

By: Manas Gupta

Manas Gupta — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 07:55:22 +0000

Would this work on the iPhone?