VIDEO: Vlingo offers voice recognition mobile app

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29 September 2009 16:14 GMT / By Duncan Geere

Vlingo has created a mobile app that will let you speak to your Nokia handset. The company behind it claims that you can say whatever you want into your handset and the phone will respond and perform, implying that there's semantic technology in there, too.

The technology works on the N95, N95 8GB, E51, E71, E75, 5530 XpressMusic, and 5800 XpressMusic, and can be used to send texts, emails, search the web, or check Facebook. It has the capability to learn an individual's voice, too, and pick it out of a loud room.

To configure the app, you can select your language and accent in the Vlingo settings menu, and the company recommends that you speak realistic phrases into the handset, as the recongition is tuned to certain tasks.

In our brief testing, it coped with a fairly regular British accent well. We had to speak slowly and carefully for it to understand us, but it worked out relatively lengthy sentences like "google chinese takeaways in finsbury park" without too much trouble.

The free version's only limit is that you can only send five messages a day, so if you're a Nokia user you might want to check it out. Also, if you're lucky enough to have a strong accent, we'd love to hear how it copes. Let us know in the comments.

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