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Although cell phones are ubiquitous, only limited numbers of individuals use them to surf the mobile Web. The telecom companies have not helped mobile Web growth by often charging excessive broadband transmission costs. In addition the cell phone has limitations with a small display screen and tiny keys for input. Although the slow rate of growth might appear unsurprising, there is a better way.

The Logic For Sound Is Strong

Whereas the keyboard interface with a cell phone is far from ideal, the cell phone is designed expressly to handle sound. In parts of the developing world, the cell phone will be the only device that many will use to surf the mobile web. The huge potential of these developing world markets will well justify the investment needed to develop strong voice recognition systems.

Market Readiness Is Poor

As yet, the market readiness for sound based mobile systems does not seem to be strong. This may be caused by two factors. Consumers may not be aware of what is possible with voice recognition technology and are therefore not expressing a desire for mobile devices that involve it. The other reason is that systems developers have grown up with systems that use keyboard inputs. These can be so effective that developers may not wish to be challenged by what they see as a more noisy method of communicating with the device.

Heartening Signs This Month

Starting with GOOG-411 and CALL-411 voice-based search systems, there have been a number of announcements that herald signs of growth.

• Voice on the Go Inc. announced that their Voice on the Go(R) service for the Apple iPhone (PDF) is now available. It enables hands-free access to all of the features on the iPhone using voice recognition software, making it a lot easier to use your iPhone while driving a car. (Tips of the hat to Edward Kirk and Patrick Moore)
• TravellingWave, a next-generation mobile user-interface technology, announced an “always-listening mode” (PDF) in which mobile users will no longer be required to press a button to switch modes between Keypad and Voice-Recognition. The TravellingWave VoicePredict™ product is a highly accurate speech interface with an always-listening mode, with high levels of noise reduction. This enables users to speak-and-type text into a mobile device faster and more easily. The VoicePredict interface further enables users to speak from the same distance that they usually type, so that users do not need to speak close to the mouth or use noise-cancelling microphones. (Tip of the hat to Carolyn Mathas)
• Traffic.com launched TrafficOne Mobile, which consists of easy-to-integrate, packaged solutions to deliver high-quality, personalized real-time traffic information across popular mobile platforms. Via the Mobile Web, a Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) site provides quick and easy real-time traffic via any wireless browser. There is also an Interactive Voice Recognition (IVR) hotline for cell phone users giving automated toll-free and hands-free access to traffic information.
• Vlingo has launched the industry’s first developer program for mobile application providers that offers a way to integrate a voice user interface into their applications with no up-front costs. (Tip of the hat to Fraser MacInnes)

What are the majors doing?

Given Bill Gates’s involvement in sound based technology, Microsoft clearly is the one to watch. Microsoft shipped Windows Vista to consumers last January with a heavy-duty voice recognition system that allows it to do far more than just recognize simple voice commands. More recently, Live Search Maps v2 is now out, the so-called Gemini version. With this you can even talk to your map, meaning that client-side voice input is now available with Live Search Mobile.

An equally strong player is Nuance Communications. Nuance , well known for automatic speech recognition and speech synthesis software, have acquired a whole series of companies this year to allow diversification in mobile and vertical markets like healthcare. On the mobile front, Nuance bought two interesting companies back in August, namely Tegic and VoiceSignal. Tegic are the company responsible for T9, the predictive text system used on many mobile phones. VoiceSignal have embedded speech technology that can be found inside handsets from Blackberry and Palm today. They also power mobile phone technology for the visually impaired, with the ability to speak the text from a mobile screen so that you know where you are in the menus. (Hat tip to Martyn Davies)

To an extent the unknown quantity here is Google. The Gphone rumour is never completely quashed and it may well be that they come out with a very cheap and innovative mobile device suited for the huge Asian markets.

It is quite clear that these three companies are highly attracted by the potential of the sound based mobile Web. Their competitive efforts to gain the lion’s share will certainly boost the rate of growth of this marketplace.

Other Related Posts

• April 2, 2008 -- Keep Your Snoopy Eyes On The Road Ahead
• March 15, 2008 -- Voice Search On Mobile Phones For A Better User Experience
• February 15, 2008 -- Voice Recognition Technology To Stop Hospital Cross-Infections

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 28th, 2007 at 3:28 pm and is filed under Cell phones, Mobile, Voice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.