Vlingo’s speech recognition for Blackberry officially outcools the iPhone — for now

Vlingo’s speech recognition for Blackberry officially outcools the iPhone — for now

Vlingo, a Cambridge, Mass, speech recognition company, has just launched an awesome voice-powered interface for Blackberry smartphones.

In a recent post about speech-to-SMS provider Yap, we posited that the ultimate mobile interface would let us navigate a phone using a combination of voice and manual input…. Continue Reading

VoiceBox tackles intelligent voice recognition

VoiceBox tackles intelligent voice recognition

“Give me the latest weather report,” you say to your car. You listen, then direct it: “Turn the heat on to 70 degrees, and read me my stock quotes. Then play some Johnny Cash.” Sound futuristic? Yes, it does — even though it also feels… Continue Reading

Tellme, Google 411 searches — all about the data

Tellme, Google 411 searches — all about the data

Tellme, the voice recognition company, has released more mobile search features, giving it a leg up on Google’s recently announced 411 service.

In addition to offering voice mobile search, which Tellme announced last month, it gives you a way of search for business listings using SMS… Continue Reading

Roundup: Walking robot, MySpace News, Dot-Watt boom and more

Roundup: Walking robot, MySpace News, Dot-Watt boom and more

Here’s the latest action:

Dexter, the first robot that “walks like we do” — Entrepreneur Trevor Blackwell started a robot company in Mountain View, Calif. called Anybots a few years ago (we wrote about it). He built a robot called Dexter, and had real trouble getting him… Continue Reading

Microsoft close to buying voice-recognition company, Tellme

Microsoft close to buying voice-recognition company, Tellme

Microsoft is negotiating to buy Tellme Networks, a Mountain View, Calif. company that offers voice-recognition technology, and could sign something as early as this week, according to multiple news reports.

A Microsoft agreement to buy Tellme could value the company at up to $800 million,… Continue Reading

Nuance shores up voice-recognition lead, buys BeVocal for $140M

Nuance Communications, the speech-recognition technology company, said it has agreed to acquire BeVocal, of Mountain View, Calif., for $140 million.

The deal allows the Burlington, Mass.-based Nuance, which dominates the speech-recognition market, to extend its reach into mobile calls, where BeVocal’s customers include carriers like Cingular,… Continue Reading

Promptu raises $5.6 more to hold its own in voice-enabled mobile search

Promptu, the Menlo Park company that uses speech recognition to let you search on a mobile phone, has raised $5.6 million in additional financing.

Voice-powered search is an increasingly competitive field, especially in the hot area of mobile. Google last year filed a patent for… Continue Reading

Tellme offers free, voice-enabled search

Tellme offers free, voice-enabled search

Tellme, a Mountain View, Calif. voice recognition company, has launched a notable mobile voice search feature.

On a Java-enabled phone, you hit the “talk” button, and say the name of city and state you are searching in. Then you say the name of the business (or… Continue Reading

Roundup: The valley’s lure, Sequoia out of Google, Office 2.0, Lala & more

Roundup: The valley’s lure, Sequoia out of Google, Office 2.0, Lala & more

YouTube will contribute to valley’s allure — Two years ago, Google’s buzz, even before its IPO, gave entrepreneurs like Tribe’s founder Mark Pincus inspiration to dream up the social networking revolution. YouTube’s grand sale will also inspire a new wave of entrepreneurs, no doubt. The WSJ… Continue Reading