Search the web with your voice

You will soon be able to search the web on your mobile using voice commands thanks to a new innovation from Yahoo.

The company has teamed up with Vlingo, a speech-recognition systems maker, to create a voice-enabled version of Yahoo oneSearch, a search application for mobile phones.

However, the innovation may not be available in the UK for some months. It has rolled out to selected devices including the BlackBerry Pearl in the US, but firm international release dates have not been set.

The voice command features are part of a general update to the oneSearch application. Yahoo oneSearch 2.0 was launched yesterday at the CTIA Wireless 2008 conference in Las Vegas.

Other new features include a push to provide more relevant information for searchers, using semantic technology.

Semantic technology is something that is beginning to make an impact on the web and involves standardising the categorisation of data on the web.

This means that surfers can make more specific searches and get information that is relevant to their needs rather than just a list of websites that contain the same keywords.

An example used by Yahoo relating to a search for "Italian restaurants" puts forward the idea that the results could include not only addresses and telephone numbers but information from restaurant booking companies displaying the number of available reservations.

These changes should come to the oneSearch application sometime before the summer, according to Yahoo.

Find out more about the semantic web in Issue 185 of Web User, on sale 10 April.

www.yahoo.co.uk