By Bernama
Los Angeles : Yahoo has become the first major search engine to let people search the Internet by talking to a mobile device, China’s XINHUA news agency quoted a newspaper, as saying on Thursday.
Through the technology from a Massachusetts start-up, Yahoo’s mobile search engine, known as oneSearch, could allow users of popular PDAs like BlackBerry Curves, Pearls or the 8800 series to scour the Web with their voice, the San Jose Mercury News daily reported.
Speaking at a trade conference in Las Vegas, Yahoo’s executive vice president Marco Boerries said that the new service would fundamentally change the way consumers use the Internet on their mobile phones.
He also said the company is working to make the service available on other mobile devices and overseas.
According to Dave Grannon, chief executive of the Cambridge, Massachusetts technology company vlingo, the service can handle any spoken query and is also built to adapt to a person’s voice and to improve over time.
Competitive services including the voice search in Microsoft’s Live Search for mobile can only handle queries for specific local information, such as directions to a local pizza parlor, the report said.
Yahoo said its deal with lingo on the service restricted the start-up from doing business with Yahoo’s competitors like Google and Microsoft.