Feature phones and smartphones fill the pockets and purses of men & women everywhere looking to connect with friends, family members or co-workers while on the go.  Would you like an easy way to quickly make a phone call without having to filter through hundreds of names and numbers in your address book? How about a virtual personal assistant?

Using voice recognition to call your contacts has never been easier (or safer!) when using Vlingo’s Virtual Assistant. Whether you are using an Android, BlackBerry, iPhone or Nokia device you can simply say “Call mom”, call Tommy mobile” or “call pizza” to instantly place a call to anyone in your address book or Vlingo’s infinite cloud-based address book.

Take a minute to download Vlingo and have your virtual assistant start calling!

So the question is how can we expect to stay ahead of the giants that are on our tail?  Well, we need to continue to out innovate them.  To put it bluntly, we’re working on a lot of crazy s*** for 2011!  Excuse my French. Of course unless you prefer it. In that case, check out our French-language beta on BlackBerry. http://blog.vlingo.com/vlingo-language-beta/

To show everyone what to expect in 2011, we’ve put together this video showcasing a bunch of stuff we have in the pipeline.  Some of this Vlingo already does, some is coming really soon, while some will take a little longer, but it’s all coming.

We’d love to know what functionality from this video you’d most like to see next.   Or maybe you have some even better ideas.  Either way, please tell us in the comments below.

Cheers,

Hadley

We’re super excited to be offering an amazing deal in conjunction with our friends at Nokia.  As part of an Ovi Store promotion featuring apps that help “create more time in your day,” now through September 3^rd Nokia users worldwide can get Vlingo Plus for the amazing price of just €3 or the equivalent in your home currency.

That’s over 50% off!!

We’re privileged to share the stage with other great utilities and tools like Snapfish, Opera and Quick Office.  Click here to purchase a copy of Vlingo Plus before the promotion ends on September 3^rd.

In addition, we’ve also launched a Facebook Contest where we’ll be giving away some great prizes:

Grand Prize (2)

• Brand new, unlocked X6 smartphone from Nokia
• Copy of Vlingo Plus

Second Prize (2)

• Brand new, unlocked 5233 smartphone from Nokia
• Copy of Vlingo Plus

Click Here to “Like” Vlingo on Facebook and enter the contest

Here are a couple fun little facts for our Nokia customers as well…

Vlingo factoid #1: did you know that Vlingo for Nokia has been used by people in over 180 counties?  That’s almost every country in the world!

Vlingo factoid #2: of those 180 counties, did you know that the country with the most active Nokia users is the United Kingdom.

Cheers and Good Luck,

TJ

I had the latest and greatest build of Vlingo fired up on my phone – even running a few unreleased beta features that the product team allowed me to try. I kept my phone in my shirt pocket or in the empty cup holder during my journey through Long Island, Manhattan and a little upstate New York.

My family and I tired hitting many of the hot & historical spots in the area.  “Statue of Liberty boat ride departure times”  I said to my Cruiser – and Vlingo came back reading the answer to me. Great but how do I get there? “Navigate to Statue of Liberty” I said. Vlingo knew that I intended to drive to the boat dock and took me right to it. On the way “store hours for FAO Schwartz” teed up a fun side trip for the kids. Next I had to call “Sarah Ann Barnett in Brewster”, my cousin that we were visiting.  It was no problem – complete hands free dialing.

My father is older so I wanted to check in on him.  I simply said, “call grandfather” and put my Dad on speakerphone so my kids could yell from the back seat that they wanted him to come to the beach with them the next day.  By the way, he did and they were delighted.

Particularly amazing was “navigate to east meets west” – I didn’t tell Vlingo that this was a restaurant or give the name of the nearby town – but Vlingo had the intelligence to figure out that I was looking for a restaurant called ‘East Meets West’ in Long Beach NY – to me, ‘east meets west’ could be a search for almost anything, but Vlingo nailed it.

Those are just the highlights, there was more as my kids used Vlingo to get sand castle instructions, my lovely wife found shopping nearby and a new book for her kindle called “Coping with In-Laws” – and of course since my wife is a huge Facebook user, she kept all her friends posted all week, using Vlingo to “update Facebook” or “check into Foursquare”

Can’t wait for the next road trip!

Chris Barnett, EVP of Global Sales, Vlingo

In the face of mounting regulatory pressures to curb mobile device use while driving–and with consumer demand for more effective and efficient data access solutions also on the upswing–the wireless industry is turning its attention to voice-activated technologies. vlingoAt the forefront of the trend: Intelligent voice applications provider Vlingo, whose voice interface technology enables users to instantly access mobile services and content including text and email, call contacts, search tools and social networking updates all by speaking directly into their devices. Founded in 2006 and backed by Charles River Ventures, Sigma Partners, Yahoo and AT&T, Vlingo now boasts more than 4 million users worldwide, spanning platforms including iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and Symbian.

Earlier this month, Vlingo launched SuperDialer, a new Android application expanding its signature voice dialer solution with the addition of a cloud-based “infinite phone book” connecting users to business listings, complete with reviews, ratings, maps and travel directions. SuperDialer offers consumers the latitude to communicate both general requests (e.g., “call dentist”) as well as more specific requests (“directions to Wrigley Field”); the $9.99 application also powers most other Android smartphone tasks.

Vlingo CEO Dave Grannan on voice-powered user experiences: The mobile industry offers great, capable devices, but by definition, user interfaces are constrained on some level. Our goal is to make mobile services more readily accessible to the user. Our focus is on natural language processing–our solution does speech recognition, but it also has to launch text messaging services and pull names out of address books. Now we’re trying to take it to a broader level around search and social networking. Everyone belongs to one social network or many–you want to keep in touch with your friends, and you want to know if they’re around. Now you can use your voice to interact and get to the people and information you care about.

The distracted driving issue is a market maker for us. Our SafeReader product reads back incoming messages while users are behind the wheel. That gave a great boost to our overall product–now more people are discovering the possibilities of using voice as an interface.

Grannan on SuperDialer: The notion is that you now have an infinite address book in the cloud. Our concept is that if you need a taxi, why not say ‘call taxi’ and not have to worry about all the other steps that are usually involved. Our search results provide sponsored listings first, then listings according to user proximity. If someone clicks on sponsor listing, we monetize that click–that’s part of our model. Either way, we don’t make the user think about what’s already in their phone book or what’s in the cloud. Having something close to you is what matters.

Grannan on developing for Android: Android is our innovation platform–when we do new things, we do them first on Android, then follow up later on other platforms. We try to get our products into the market as fast as we can. That’s why we turn to Android first.

[Fragmentation is a challenge] for any developer in mobile. We made the decision four or five months ago to focus on one platform as our first priority. Device manufacturers and carriers want to buy differentiation and leadership–for us, Android is a better bet for delivering those kinds of experiences, because of its openness and because the development environment is very simple and rapid. We can develop new products very rapidly. Contrast that with Apple–it’s rapid, but it’s also very restrictive. Developer nirvana would be the openness of Android with the tools and maturity of iOS.

Grannan on the future of voice-enabled technologies: Three years ago, there were no touch interfaces, and no dominant UI modality. Now we can see a multi-modal environment where people get new devices and know they can type on a physical keyboard or virtual keyboard as well as talk. Our view is that none replaces the other. It’s all very synergistic. If you’re sitting in a meeting, you’re not going to speak a message–you’re going to hold your phone under the table and type it. But there are so many use cases where voice is going to be the preferred interface. It’s so much easier to speak questions–why launch a browser and go to a Google search box to type in a question? It’s a pain. But if you can press one widget, ask a question and get a response, it opens up new ways to interact.

Grannan on advice for aspiring mobile developers: While you’re still small, pick a single platform to develop on and put all of your weight behind it. Of course you want a market opportunity across all platforms. We all want that. But it’s hard to achieve when you have to port your application to all of these platforms. So you have to make a tradeoff–do you want to focus on innovation or on porting? The answer is that you need to put all your wood behind a single arrowhead and demonstrate your viability on a single platform. Because if you don’t differentiate, you’re going to be behind.

The Gadget Show, a well-known British television series previews and reviews the latest gadgets, and also broadcasts the latest technology news.  The show is aimed at giving consumers an insight into the gadget world. What apps consumers need to buy, what smartphones have the coolest features and what are the must-have flat screen TV’s.  You get the idea! Last week they did a show featuring LG’s latest 3DTV and Vlingo.  The video review is just of Vlingo for iPhone but you will get an idea of Vlingo’s features and how it works.

The full video is about 12 minutes so we’ve cut the piece to just highlight Vlingo Click here to check it out!

Since Vlingo for Nokia launched in September of 2009, the app has been downloaded in over 180 countries (WOW!!), with the top country being the United Kingdom, followed by Italy, India, Germany & Spain.

And something else, Nokia users voted Vlingo as the “Must-have Utilities App of the year” in 2009!

Haven’t heard of the app? Well with Vlingo for Nokia, you can simply use your voice to…

• instantly send emails and text messages
• call a friend
• search the Web
• create a “note-to-self
• and more!

Don’t have Vlingo on your Nokia S60 device? Well, it’s now time for you to try it out! Vlingo and Nokia are pleased to offer a special promotion for Nokia users – for a limited time you can download Vlingo from the Ovi Store by Nokia for free and upgrade to Vlingo Plus for more than 50% off. Get it today!

Erin Keleher, Senior Marketing Communications Manager, Vlingo

Having just launched Vlingo for Nokia in September, we think this is a true testament to the application. If you haven’t tried Vlingo out yourself, download it now by clicking here.

Erin Keleher, Senior Marketing Communications Manager, Vlingo

To download Vlingo from Ovi, just click here vlingo.com/ovi

Check out some of the most recent reviews on the Ovi Store:

AWESOME
by: ace_01 – 54 minutes ago
omg! So freakin cool!

awesome
by: zeebest007 – 13 hours ago
very useful

great
by: kaighin – 23 hours ago
excelent app

awesome
by: mbrookes76 – 1 day ago
i had this app on my blackberry fantastic to see its now available for my N97.. Well worth downloading.. Shame its not 100% free tho but would pay the fee to use it to it’s fullest compatability.. Great to use when your driving handsfree technology

great!
by: 0044Arth – 1 day ago
voice recognization is unbelievable!

wow
by: Ahmed.zizo – 1 day ago
wow

get it
by: ogdobber – 5 days ago
works perfect. great for messaging while driving

Hadley Harris
Vice President of Consumer Business
Vlingo

Vlingo voice control program included with N97 firmware update

It took me a few minutes to wipe out my N97 and reload my favorite apps, but I am up and running now and am very pleased with the firmware 2.0 update and am thankful I did not sell my N97 a couple months ago when I was thinking I needed to let it go to save up for the N900. One of the slickest pieces of software that Nokia included with this update is Vlingo and I have to admit I never heard of this software before and had it mixed up with Viigo that I have seen before on BlackBerry devices. Vlingo is actually an application that lets you control your Nokia device with your voice, but goes beyond just opening up apps. With Vlingo you can perform the following:

* Search the Internet
* Dial by voice
* Create a note to yourself
* Open applications
* Update your Facebook status
* Send text messages
* Send email

I do see that these last two functions are trials and you can only send 15 text messages or emails before you have to pay a one-time $19.99 fee or $4.99/month fee to use these functions. This upgrade is called Vlingo Plus and is not included with your N97 purchase.

Have any readers tried out this application/service and if so, do you find it to be accurate and worth the $20?