Google launches voice-controlled search engine

So just after I mention that Google needs to push into this space Google has unveiled the latest venture from its Labs, a voice-based local search tool for phones.

Google Voice Local Search lets you search for a local business in the US simply by speaking the search term. Users call a freephone number and can then be connected to business or can choose to receive the details via a text message.

The company notes that the service is still experimental as most of Googles initial launches are and may not be available at all times and may not work for all users (example those with think Irish accents). It is currently restricted to the US, and only returns results for related businesses, but like the desktop version of Google Local search is likely to become more widely available as testing progresses.

Check it out at labs.google.com/goog411/

The world's largest internet players (Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft) are jockeying for position in voice-activated search services as they strive to extend their reach beyond computers to mobile phones. Lets face it, there are a lot more phones than computers out there and often the need for information is required on the go.

Who can blame them for aggresively pursueing this strategy; with mobile advertising revenues forecast to grow eightfold in the next four years, to $11.5 billion and the market for directory enquiries worth $8 billion a year in the US alone.

GigaOM has reported that Gary Clayton, the chief creative officer of TellMe and Victor Chen, a senior TellMe executive have joined Yahoo! recently. Gary Clayton has joined as a vice president in R&D division of Yahoo! This is a coup for Yahoo! and must annoy Microsoft to no end.

It seems that Yahoo! is trying to develop its own TellMe inhouse. It seems clear that Yahoo! is planning to add voice to its web services.

This space is now reaching boiling point.

Circumventing the standards

Recently I encountered an annoyance with the VXML standard. I was unable to use <if> within a <prompt>. The reason why I wanted to do this was to adjust the prompt based on a variable. The prompt was fairly long with just some variance based on the value of this variable. It was possible to do <if><prompt>...</prompt><else if/><prompt>...</prompt><else if/> etc etc. But this just made the document bigger and bigger and it just seemed to me that this abitrary limitation was ridiculous.
So imagine my surprise when I was able to circumvent this limitation while remaining within the standard. How was this possible? Simple, I used the <foreach> tag which is allowed to be a child of <prompt>. I created a dummy array of one element enabling me to do the following:

<prompt>
   this is the start of this prompt
   <foreach array="dummyArrayOfOneElement" item="foo">
      <if cond="cond1">
         middle prompt 1
      <elseif cond="cond2"/>
         middle prompt 2
      <else/>
         middle prompt default
      </if>
   </foreach>
   this is the end of this prompt
</prompt>

Can someone tell me why the limitation exists on <if> and why the limitation is pointless if it can be circumvented and still remain within the standard?

The VXML, CCXML Great Divide, oops I mean Great Collide

So in a prior post I went through some of the great pains when trying to get CCXML and VXML to play nicely together. Well I have news from a reliable source that this pain is to soon be a thing of the past, at least on the Voxeo platform.
Voxeo have taken great strides in this area and will soon be introducing some great new features that will certainly make my life a lot easier.
Soon you will be able to transparently move data from CCXML to VXML and back again transparently. With the use of JSON; complex scripted objects (arrays, structures, etc) will be able to be passed and the arbitrary size limits of these data structures will be removed. What does this mean to the developer? Well a lot in fact. Now voice applications will seamlessly be able to incorporate all the features of CCXML and VXML . In fact the seam is going to be so tight that as a developer you can more or less consider them one. Ah, the complete control of call and dialog. The voice application holy grail has been found.

Microsoft Acquires Tellme

Microsoft announced the acquisition of Tellme. The Price, previously rumored in the $800 million range, is undisclosed.
This is an interesting development and continues to show the consolidation in this space (Nuance snapped up BeVocal
and Genesys Lab/Alcatel-Lucent snapped up VoiceGenie). Some of the big companies are realizing that the phone has much more penetration than computers and with cell phones there use is ubitquitous.
Tellme has done some interesting things recently with cell phones blurring the lines between voice user interfaces and visual user interfaces.
Also Microsoft can use Tell Me to do the same thing as free411.com with Live Local.
Now are there more acquisitions ahead from the likes of Google who certainly don't want to miss the boat. In fact at the moment Google is falling further and further behind Microsoft and Yahoo (who seem to be leading the charge in this area).