Vlingo Brings Mobile Voice Recognition Technology to Europe

Vlingo is available as a download via the Ovi Store by Nokia for consumers in the U.K., Germany, Italy and, Spain for selected devices, the company announced today. Additional languages and devices are expected to be added over the coming months.

In a move that will make Vlingo's speech recognition solution available out of the box to consumers worldwide, Vlingo will be preloaded on two of Nokia's hero devices—the Nokia N97 and the Nokia E72. In addition to English, Vlingo will be available in German, Spanish, and Italian—with further European languages to follow shortly.

After a simple download, consumers can talk to their mobile device using ordinary speech to instantly send text messages or email, call a friend, create a note to themselves, or search the Web.

"Mobile users have been restricted by triple tapping and tiny keyboards for far too long," said Ashley Griffiths, managing director of Vlingo's EMEA region. "Our experience in the USA is that once people discover it, they see the benefits immediately and then use it routinely—with text, Web search and voice dial the three most popular areas. Nokia has also seen these results and we view this deal with them as an important validation of our approach to the global marketplace."

The basic version of Vlingo, available as a free download, allows users to use voice commands to:

• open third party and native applications such as camera and calendar;
• send a limited number of text messages or emails;
• find and dial numbers;
• search the Web; and
• create notes to themselves.