Wireless Voice Recognition

If you’re anything like me, you’ll finding SMS a tedious experience. Small keys and a somewhat limited vocabulary database combine to make texting a time consuming way of communicating.

Thankfully with the processing power improving in modern cell phones, voice recognition software is now a possibility. Sprint have recently launched their own voice recognition solution where a person can press a button on their Blackberry and dictate a short message 20 words long. The voice recognition software, developed by MobileVoiceControl Inc., then gets to work and converts the voice message to a text message that is ready for sending within a minute or so.

Sprint is hoping to entice more customers to subscribe to their high-speed data plan, and they aren’t the only network looking to add value. IBM and Nuance Communications Inc. are also developing voice recognition technologies for wireless carriers. Motorola have already said that they plan to start offering their customers a phone with integrated voice recognition capability later this year.

So if every phone was to ship with built-in voice recognition, will we find ourselves using phones without a keyboard at all? The traditional keypad could be removed entirely and replaced by the voice recognition software. But until the processing power in cell phones is improved, that dream scenario is a long way off.

Great news for everyone that simply cannot be bothered with text messages!