Voice recognition software for your cell phone

Posted on October 28, 2008 at 5:49 am

I’m a big fan of smart phones because I can now do a lot of stuff I couldn’t do a few years back like buy stuff online, browse web sites, watch movies and videos, listen to music, etc, etc. However, one thing that I still can’t do at all is talk to my cell phone!

Yes some Motorola phones and Blackberry devices let you speak some commands like “Call Mom”, etc, but I still find this pretty lame considering how far technology has come! I mean when I call UPS or Dell or my credit card company, I have to first answer 10 questions about why I’m calling and the whole thing is voice-recognition driven!

It’s about time that some of that nifty software be incorporated into cell phone and other smart phones like the BlackBerry, the iPhone, etc, etc. So I did some research and found that there actually are a couple of services that allow you to talk to your phone and get movie times, local restaurant listings, sports scores, and lots more!

Microsoft Tellme

Tellme great voice recognition service for your BlackBerry! Just press a button on the side of your BlackBerry and speak commands into it like “Coffee”, which will then give you the names of local businesses based on your GPS location, maps, directions, and even traffic! Nice!

Say the word “Movies” and it goes out to Fandango and pulls down what’s playing in the theatre near you. You can search through movies, showtimes and theaters by just talking.

Same thing applies for Weather, Sports, Stock Quotes, Travel, News, and Entertainment. It’s a completely free service and it works not only on BlackBerries, but also Windows Mobile devices and Nokia phones.

Vlingo

If you have a BlackBerry, however, you should definitely consider Vlingo, which is probably better than Tellme! Basically, with Tellme, you have to speak certain words, like Sports, Movies, etc to get information.

Using Vlingo, you can actually just talk like a normal person to your phone! Want to write out an email, but speak it instead of typing? No problem. Want to perform a Google search, just say what you are searching for and that’s it. It’s definitely much more conversational.

You can speak to your phone, for example, by saying “pizza in Dallas, TX” and the phone will figure out what you are looking for, find it, and then gives you directions on how to get there. For sports scores, you can just say “get me New Orleans Saints scores” and it will fetch them for you.

It also has a self-correcting technology, so if you say something that it misinterprets, correct it and next time it will not get it wrong.

Writing emails is however the coolest part. You can say “Send message to Dad. I will see you in three hours. Period.” It will open the mail application, transcribe the message and all you have to do is press one button to send it.

They are also coming out with an iPhone version by the end of November 2008, so that will be very cool! In 2009, they will have it for Windows Mobile and Symbian.

Nuance Voice Control

Nuance has a mobile app also called Voice Control that is the only one that is not free. It costs $6 a month, but it uses Dragon speech-recognition software, which is extremely accurate. It also works on Windows Mobile devices, BlackBerries, and Palms.

You can search the Internet and compose email messages, just like the other software mentioned, but Voice Control will also read your message back to you after transcribing.

Of course, if you don’t have a fancy smart phone, then you can still get business listings, etc by dialing 411 services, like Google’s free 411 service. Enjoy!

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Comments

One Response to “Voice recognition software for your cell phone”

surya said on : September 19th, 2009 at 7:33 am

i want a speech engine software to be loaded in my mobile phone …. can u give me the name of the software which supports the mobile….. the software has to convert my speech into text instead of writing messages…….