Vlingo Offers Total Voice Control of BlackBerry Smartphones

Vlingo yesterday launched a new application that provides a complete voice-powered interface for BlackBerry smartphones.

The application, which uses vlingo’s own speech recognition technology, lets BlackBerry users compose and send emails and text messages, search the Web, open applications like BlackBerry Calendar and BlackBerry Maps, place calls, look up contacts in their address books, and even send notes to themselves, all with the power of voice. 
 
To use the application, which is available from vlingo as a free download, BlackBerry users press the side "convenience" key on their handset, which lets them speak commands into the phone. vlingo also provided a video demo of the BlackBerry application.
Vlingo is currently supported on the BlackBerry Pearl, BlackBerry Curve and BlackBerry 8800 series smartphones. Vlingo hopes to make the application available on additional devices and  operating systems later this year.

Officials at BlackBerry and Research in Motion (RIM), the makers of the BlackBerry line of smartphones, declined to comment, noting that RIM assumes no obligations or liability and makes no representation, warranty, endorsement or guarantee in relation to any aspect of any third party products or services.

However, vlingo CEO David Grannan was more forthcoming. "Vlingo believes that we can immediately improve the way every person interacts with their wireless devices and the BlackBerry platform is the perfect place to start our aggressive expansion strategy here in the U.S. and abroad," he said in a statement.

Grannan also noted that vlingo's selection in April by Yahoo! to voice-enable its oneSearch mobile search application "showed the world just how quick and easy mobile Web search can be with the power of voice. Vlingo takes this technology beyond Web search into everyday applications that are now instantly more usable and easier to find because you only need to think about one button and a few spoken words."