Speech recognition services on mobile phones aren’t new, with speech recognition for services such as speaking search terms part of Google’s Android and Microsoft’s Windows Mobile phone operating systems, as well as featured in independent apps from companies such as Nuance and Vlingo. With mobile phones doing more and more and the small form factor making typing and navigation inconvenient, it has become clear that speech recognition will be a key user interface option for mobile devices. These services seem on the surface to have many of the voice-enabled features that Apple featured, so is Apple just playing catch-up? What’s new?

A lot, according to Bill Meisel, editor of Speech Strategy News and co-organizer of the Mobile Voice Conference in March (http://www.mobilevoiceconference.com). First, he notes, Apple is featuring more than speech recognition (which converts speech to a text representation)it is highlighting speech understanding, knowing what to do with the speech content. Apple has always attempted to deliver solutions that don’t require a user manual, and allowing a user to say what they want in a natural way is part of that philosophy. Siri’s focus as a company before the Apple acquisition was on natural language understanding; the company’s credentials as a spinout of SRI International (guess where “Siri” comes from) suggest solid core technology. The speech recognition used by Siri was from Nuance Communications, and almost certainly still is. (Nuance is widely rumored to have some licensing deal with Apple that apparently will not be announced.)

Second, the speech understanding is tightly coupled with the Apple OS and applications and services on the phone and in the network. By providing the phone and applications delivered with the phone, Apple has an advantage in making the speech assistant capable of doing what the user asks, e.g., reminding the user to do a specific task when they leave home in the morning, combining GPS and a reminder program. The speech understanding must find the most appropriate application or service to respond to a user request, so it is integrated with Web-based services as well, e.g., Wolfram Alpha.

Third, the app can be cognizant of the user preferences and user-specific information such as contact lists as a result of this tight integration. Presumably, Siri will use information on what a user tends to request and from corrections users make to improve its performance. It thus becomes over time a true “personal” assistant. Apple makes it difficult for apps from outside developers to have full access to some built-in apps and OS functions, making external apps less able to have this tight integration.

Fourth, Siri uses “conversational” speech. Many speech recognition applications today, e.g., voice search, allow the user to say one phrase, and, after a slight delay, drop them into a non-speech application, e.g., a list of web sites matching spoken search terms. There are latency issues as the speech is transmitted over the network, processed at servers, and the result returned. The examples given by Apple seem to suggest that they have reduced latency sufficiently to allow more back-and-forth interaction, although there is a big difference between a demo and in-the-field experience.

Fifth, although it wasn’t specifically announced, the iPhone may have an advantage over some phones in handling speech input. Previous versions have included a chip from Audience that has advanced noise-cancelling features; this capability, if present, could allow using voice interation in environments where phones without noise-cancelling features can’t.

Other companies offering speech recognition solutions for mobile devices–e.g., Microsoft, Google, Nuance, and Vlingo–have capabilities in natural language understanding, and have featured some of these capabilities in their apps. Nuance’s deal with Apple, for example, while it will generate some licensing revenues, is probably motivated to get mobile phone manufacturers to preload the company’s Dragon Go! app to get some of the same speech understanding features. Nuance also recently launched a mobile developer’s program that will let other app developers incorporate Nuance’s network-based speech recognition in their apps, a further expansion of Nuance’s business. And Microsoft and Google have already built some speech recognition and understanding features into their operating systems. Expect some comparisons of which are “smartest”!

One bottom line take-away, Meisel noted, is that, given the market share of Apple’s iPhone and the likely competitive response from other vendors, speech understanding is now a key and growing part of the user interface for mobile devices. This trend is the motivation for the Mobile Voice Conference, the third year of which will take place in San Francisco March 19-21, 2012.

About the Mobile Voice Conference

The Mobile Voice Conference is organized by the Applied Voice Input Output Society and Bill Meisel. It provides attendees with information to help them take advantage of the rapidly developing opportunities created by the explosion of mobile phone use, and, in particular, with the increasing role of voice interaction on mobile devices, including its implications for app development, enterprise use, and customer service. The preliminary program and sponsorship opportunities are available at http://www.mobilevoiceconference.com.

The first day of the conference is the Vendor Showcase, part of the full conference registration, but free for those attending the one day. Information on conference sponsorship opportunities and participation in the Vendor Showcase is available at the conference website.

About the Applied Voice Input Output Society

AVIOS is non-profit organization promoting the speech technology industry for over a quarter-century. For more info, see http://www.avios.org.

Contacts:

AVIOS: Peggie Johnson, 408-323-1783, Peggie(at)avios(dot)org

TMA Associates: Bill Meisel, 818-708-0962, b.meisel(at)tmaa(dot)com

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Cogentas technology platform aggregates pricing & product information feeds from all of the major high-street & online retailers. This information is then delivered as a real-time price comparison service via an easy-to-use mobile application. The app provides immediate access to more than 2.5m products from names including John Lewis, Argos and Comet as well as the major online retailers.

Shoppers can use this app to make price comparison checks in just before the point of purchase. Cogenta claim that this service is unique in giving shoppers a truly accurate price comparison tool that they can use when theyre out and about to check prices before making a purchase.

Adrian Hobbs, CEO of Cogenta said Were delighted to have Paul to advise and help us through this exciting expansion phase. We know the proposition is strong even without any marketing, weve had more than 250,000 downloads of the mobile shopping app and the customer reviews are increasingly positive. Now were ready to partner with 3 or 4 large-scale media owners, giving them a platform that will allow them to build and own a database of transacting customers. Paul brings a wealth of experience of the media landscape and a great track record of delivering successful commercial partnerships, so were thrilled to have him help us with this.

Paul Hood added, Im excited about the potential for Cogentas mobile shopping platform. Functionally, the app is brilliant, its got an elegant interface and is simple to use. And because it helps people save money, its got the potential for universal appeal. I see the platform as a fantastic way for traditional media owners to create a branded, high-value eCRM business of customers whose shopping behavior they can track in real time. Well be in a position to announce our first major partnership very soon.

Notes

Cogenta maintain a unique view of the UK market by ensuring that the top high street [multi-channel] retailers and online are covered in depth making sure the experience is relevant for people wherever they are shopping.

Cogentas shopping app Sccope won the Editors Choice Award at the popular CrackBerry Awards 2010.

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Sonic Notify introduced its Sonic Live platform last week at the CMJ 2011 smartlounge, a 2-day event that bridged the gap between music and technology with a totally immersive physical and digital live music lounge. Sonic Notify powered the event with the smartlounge application using its patented technology. Sonic integrated partners including Spotify, Turntable.FM, SoundCloud, Sol Republic, and Plus Music into a single application, all interconnected with audio.

Sonic Notifys technology is a first of its kind audio encoding format that allows for the transmission of significant information through any audio system, whether a purpose built emitter, a classic AM/FM radio, a television receiving a cable or satellite signal, or a computer streaming video over the Internet.

Sonic Live is built with this technology, which enabled Cantora to unify unique interactive experiences for the smartlounge attendees through the audio system already at the venue. Sonic developed and powered the smartlounge mobile application for the iPhone and Android that was used as guests required entry passes into the event. Encouraged to keep it open throughout the event, the application read the Sonic code that was being transmitted over the venues speaker system. As guests smart phones heard the code, guests were presented with contextually relevant content delivered in real-time based on the guests physical location within the venue.

The first of its kind application and its integrations were a huge success, shaping how guests experienced the smartlounge. Across the 700 guests in attendance, 667 (over 95%) engaged with the application, receiving at least 17 unique pieces of content each. Over the events two days, the application delivered 11,867 pieces of content with 1,077 unique interactions. Comparing this to the classic Internet Click-thru Experience draws a stark comparison; guests chose to engage with 10% of all activations they received, making the smartlounge a blockbuster release for Sonic Notify and Sonic Live.

Activations were tailored to highlight each technology partner to the greatest extent. Spotify provided artist-curated playlists that attendees received while bands were performing. Guests were notified within the application that a playlist was available (passively through the audio system), and were taken directly to their mobile app to listen to the playlist. Knowing the audience at the lounge was highly targeted, the contextual relevance of the content was compelling and enabled content engagement with over 375 people.

The Sonic technology was also used to give away free Sol Republic headphones. At various points through the event, a special Sonic code was emitted passively through the audio system to notify a random number of application users that they had won free headphones. More examples of activations can be found in the case study.

Users continuously kept their application open in hopes of receiving the next piece of content, or for the chance of winning one of the giveaways. The unique activation of Sonic garnered countless exclamatory tweets by music and tech writers in attendance, and its innovation in the live event space was written about in major publications.

Sonic Notify was founded as a collaboration between then Columbia University Electrical Engineering student Alex Morgan Bell and the successful technology development firm Densebrain, as led by Jonathan Glanz. By utilizing advanced decoding algorithms and low cost hardware, the team has put together a patent pending technology for delivering content to smart phones through any speaker. The cost point and versatility of the product open up what was once a niche field of location advertising, to the wide world of possibilities. The end product promises to revolutionize how companies reach people, by allowing contextual and proximity specific marketing and messaging that can target a consumer within a foot of a product, a room in a venue, or in front of the television.

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IEEE, the world’s largest professional association advancing technology for humanity, today announced it is hosting the first IEEE Technology Time Machine (TTM) Symposium. Being held in Hong Kong, 1-3 June 2011, the IEEE TTM is a unique event for industry leaders, academics and decision makers in governments who direct research and development (R&D) activities, plan research programs, or manage portfolios of research activities. Register here:

http://www.techbeyond2020.ust.hk/register.html.

WHAT:

Alexa Hirschfeld, the Founder of Paperless Post and one of Fast Company magazine’s most influential women in technology, will deliver a keynote address at the 2011 Wharton BizTech conference (http://www.whartonbiztech.com) on December 2.

Hirschfeld will join executives of other leading Internet companies at the conference, including Facebook, Groupon and Paypal, to discuss new e-commerce business models. The event is organized by MBA students at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Participants will explore the development of social commerce, alternative currencies, social fundraising, flash sales, subscription-based selling and business models based on sharing. A decade and a half after the first rudimentary e-commerce websites began trading, these trends are reshaping how the Internet can be monetized.

The conference, which typically attracts almost 400 attendees, will also showcase technology and e-commerce companies founded by current University of Pennsylvania students at a start-up pavilion.

Other conference panelists will be drawn from some of the most innovative companies in e-commerce, including:

American Express’s Membership Rewards loyalty program
Points.com, the website which allows consumers to manage points from multiple loyalty programs
Vente Privee, the members-only website which sells designer fashion in eight countries in partnership with American Express
Venmo, the mobile payments company
DonorsChoose, the charity fundraising engine
Storably, a Philadelphia-based market for parking and storage

The conference will be held at Philadelphia’s Ritz-Carlton. Tickets are available for purchase on our website.

About BizTech@Wharton

BizTech@Wharton, now in its 16th year, consistently attracts top tech executives and thought leaders who wish to engage in lively, relevant conversations about the dynamic field of technology. The conference is organized by MBA students at The Wharton School and has featured notable keynote speakers including Stephen C. Savage, CIO, CA, Inc.; Stephen Elop, CEO, Nokia; Ahmed Mahmoud, CIO, AMD; and Glenn Britt, President and CEO, Time Warner Cable.

This year’s conference is sponsored by Wharton’s William and Phyllis Mack Center for Technological Innovation, Wharton Entrepreneurial Programs, Groupon, Monetate, Polaris Software Lab, Shutterstock, Electronic Arts, Lo & Sons, and Yorn.

For more information and to register, visit BizTechs website. We’re also on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

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FastGSM has provided cell phone unlocking services to consumers for nearly three years. Today the company announces a fast and affordable alternative to unlock Sony Ericsson Xperia cell phones more conveniently.

Normally unlocking a cell phone would involve one or more visits to a store that offers unlocking services, according Jan Dvorak, CEO of STROM Import. If you dont have a local shop nearby youll need to ship the phone to an unlocking service provider. This can be an expensive and time consuming process. With our new software consumers can simply unlock the Sony Ericsson Xperia cell phone, and other qualified models, from anywhere.

There are a number of advantages to using an unlocked cell phone and it is completely legal. Consumers believe purchasing a traditional locked cell phone is inconvenient because coverage is limited to an exclusive carrier. Users can now save on roaming charges while traveling on holiday or business and unlocked cell phones can be recycled. A phone that can be recycled attracts more interest from buyers because consumers can upgrade to a newer model cell phone at any time.

FastGSM unlocking technology offers end-users an opportunity to unlock the most well known cellular brands on the market today such as; the latest Android-powered Samsung phones, BlackBerry, HTC, LG, Pantech, Huawei, Apple iPhone and Motorola. Unlocking the SE Xperia removes the “SIM network unlock PIN” screen. Unlocking another brand requires bypassing the “Invalid SIM Card” or “Network Lock” status.

Removing these functions allows consumers to use their mobile phone with an alternative carrier network SIM card, explains Jan Dvorak.

Unlocking a cell phone does not require experience or advanced technical knowledge and to complete the unlocking process consumers only need a computer with a Microsoft Windows 7, XP, or Vista operating system, an Internet connection and a USB cable. In addition to software development, FastGSM has produced hundreds of unlocking tutorials and manages the most popular cell phone unlocking YouTube Channel on the internet.

For more information on Sony Ericsson Xperia unlocking or a complete list of available products and services please visit FastGSM.com.

About FastGSM.com

FastGSM.com is the fastest growing cell phone unlocking service provider on the internet. The company was founded in 2009 by STROM Import CEO Jan Dvorak, a 10 year veteran of mobile phone unlocking services. FastGSM is a division of STROM Import and currently supports over 5,000 cell phones worldwide, including the popular Xperia X10 and Xperia Arc (LT15) models. For more information please go to http://www.FastGSM.com

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Rebtel, the worlds second largest mobile VoIP company after Skype, today announced the launch of Rebtel 2.0, a new generation of intelligent applications designed for desktop and smartphones, which facilitates platform independent free high-quality calls. The free iPhone application, available today from iTunes, allows users to make and receive free international calls using WiFi/3G as well as local minutes. Texts and calls can also be done to any non-Rebtel users on any phone for rates up to 90% cheaper than the standard international calling rate of an average carrier. The app also introduces a new proprietary Rebtel technology called KeepTalking, which by the push of a button allows users to seamlessly transition mid-call from WiFi/3G to local minutes. The iPhone and desktop applications will add to the Rebtel free call network already including Android and Blackberry applications and facilitate free calls between all existing platforms.

The market for voice is still twice that of all TV operators and three times more than all internet related revenues. Voice calls generated $ 628 billion of carrier operator revenues last year, meaning that two thirds of total revenues and half of total profits still come from voice calls. Mobile messaging generated 19% of total mobile operator revenues 45% of total profits. That means that voice and messaging produced 86% of all mobile operator revenues and 95% of their profits. The mobile VoIP market is expected to reach $ 36 billion in revenues by 2016 and by the end of 2011, there will be around 70 million mobile VoIP users according to a study from Visiongain 2011.

The industry is full of exciting innovations such as GroupMe, Tango and Viber, however these services are limited to those who have downloaded these apps and those who have strong enough data coverage. Rebtel has none of these limitations and addresses them with one single app, said Andreas Bernstrom, CEO of Rebtel. Our app makes smart decisions based on price and data connection quality. The app allows you to call any phone or PC anywhere over WiFi/3G or the cellular network using local minutes, and allows users to seamlessly switch between the two if data coverage deteriorates. Its the best of both worlds and will ensure huge user savings of up to 40% compared to services like Skype.

Rebtel 2.0 offers the following features and benefits:

KeepTalking

For situations when the WiFi/3G connection is not good enough to sustain a call, Rebtel introduces KeepTalking, allowing users to simply press a button on the iPhone call screen during a WiFi/3G call to seamlessly improve the connection from data to local numbers and still be able to make a Free International Call using Rebtels applications and local numbers in 53 countries. The new innovation KeepTalking aims to increase voice quality, reduce phone bills and greatly reduce dropped calls. With the new applications it is now possible to keep calling internationally for free even when you transfer from data to a regular mobile call.

Platform Independent Free Calls Between Rebtel App Users

Calls to friends who are running any Rebtel application on a smartphone or PC can be made for free over WiFi/3G as well as using local minutes. These contacts are labeled Free in the in-app contact list to make it simple to see whos already using Rebtel, and who you should invite. Whenever a friend or business acquaintance in a users contact list downloads Rebtel 2.0, a PUSH message is sent as a notification. Rebtel also offers SMS to any mobile phone number, with an average cost savings of approximately 60% over U.S. carriers.

Contact Integration

Rebtel 2.0 works with each users own contact list wherever it might live. The companys mobile offerings integrate with the phones native address book, while the PC app allows you to connect with third-party services such as Google Contacts and Facebook.

Easy Set-up

With the new Rebtel applications, the sign up process is reduced to one single step where the user simply connects their phone to the Rebtel network. Immediately after signup, the user can see which friends in their contact list they can call for free.

About Rebtel

Rebtel is the worlds second largest mobile VoIP company. Today, Rebtel is growing rapidly with more than 13 million callers and with a run rate of over 1 billion minutes per year. The company is on pace to hit $ 75 million in revenue run rate end of 2011. Rebtel users call through smartphone or desktop applications or any other phone to make free or cheap international calls using either data calls globally or one of the worlds largest local number network for calling from 50 Rebtel countries. For more information, or to start using Rebtel, go to http://www.rebtel.com.

Contact:

Eric Gonzalez

VSCpr for Rebtel

415-272-0836

eric(at)vscpr(dot)com

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Travel Leaders of Fargo has taken its customer and prospect engagement to new heights through its online presence with the addition of Workface

Kajeet

Its already proved a big hit among iPhone and iPad users, and Gadget Specialist Monster Stuff are pleased to announce news of Android compatibility for the AR.Drone which means its validated for Motorola Xoom, HTC Desire, Desire HD, Sensation, LG Optimus 2x, Sony Ericsson Xperia Play, Samsung Galaxy S1 / S2 and Nexus S devices.

The AR Drone is the worlds first quadricopter designed to be flown indoors or outside via an iPhone, iPod touch, iPad or Android Smartphone using touch-screen Wi-Fi technology. And with Monsterstuff.co.uk currently offering the AR Drone at just