New Windows Live Search Supports Speech

[Mike Temporale]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2007/oct07/10-15OSBUpdatesPR.mspx' target='_blank'>http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2007/oct07/10-15OSBUpdatesPR.mspx</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>&quot;Microsoft Corp. today announced the final updates to the fall release of its Live Search service, introducing a broad array of new services and features to its local and mobile search offerings. The new features and enhancements are designed to make it easier for people to find what they need at home or on the go through significant innovations in mapping, imagery and driving directions as well as new services to make the mobile search experience easy and powerful.&quot;</em></p><p><img alt="" border="1" src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/500/spt/auto/1192540182.usr3.jpg" /></p><p>There's a new version of Windows Live Search for Windows Mobile devices (and other platforms, but we don't really care about the others ;-) You can check out the <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2007/oct07/10-15OSBUpdatesPR.mspx">Press Release</a>&nbsp;for all the detail, or watch a video preview of the new version over at Rob Chambers <a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/robch/archive/2007/10/15/live-search-for-windows-mobile-now-with-speech-recognition.aspx">blog</a>. The new version will show you gas prices and it will even recognize speech.&nbsp; So you can just tell your phone to locate the nearest Big Kahuna Buger joint. </p><p>Windows Live Search is free to download and use. Just point IE Mobile to&nbsp;<a href="http://wls.live.com">wls.live.com</a> and download it directly to your phone.&nbsp; You can read more about the new version on the <a href="http://www.livesearchmobile.com/">Live Search Website</a>.</p>

[ctmagnus]

The speech recognition only works for the U.S., and not for the U.K. And there's stll no implied support for Canada.

[Mike Temporale]

They may not 'support' canada, but I've been using the mapping and location features in Canada for a while. I haven't installed the latest version to try the speech, but I plan to find out shortly. :D

[Bittermormon]

Whats the point of using speech for Live Search? I still have to look at the list to see if it understood me correctly. If I need voice activated addy lookup, I'll still use Goog-411.

Can someone please enlighten me?

[Mike Temporale]

Fair enough, but it's still faster, easier, and safer to say "Big Kahuna Buger, Toronto, Ontario" than typing all that in. Yes, you may have to glance at the screen, but it's a quick look vs all that time spent typing. ;)

First step is to add support for speech, then I imagine they will be adding support for the device to read results back to you.