Bing's Tellme voice recognition search app

Apps: Thurs 08th October 2009

I fall into the audience group that this will appeal to. A new app that let's you search Bing.com by speaking into your phone as oppose to typing the query.

This is great news for people who are somewhat lazy, or annoyed, by having to type on small phone keypads. In certain situations "spoken search" might be a lot easier to use, such as when you are walking down the street with heavy bags.

The voice user interface has been launched in collaboration with Samsung. It is available on Samsung's 'Intrepid' phones which are being rolled out in the US this month.

The effort level of testing is apparently higher than calling. It takes 20 hits on the keyboard to search traditionally, compared to the average 6 steps of a phone call.

Dariusz Paczuski, senior director, mobile, at Microsoft, said: "We call these 'multitasking scenarios' and they are more common than you think. According to a recent study from Sanderson Studio, 40 percent of Smartphone usage occurs in multitasking scenarios where the user cannot offer their undivided attention to their phone."

The app will be competing with Google maps voice recognition app, which is available for iphone users here in the UK.