There’s been a few postings recently on here about Nuance, who are a leader in the speech recognition arena. Dave at Schwartz PR has just been in touch with the rather hot piece of news that Nuance has just bought VoiceSignal, another company in the same arena.

According to Nuance’s chairman and CEO, Paul Ricci:

“Today, more than two billion people worldwide rely on mobile phones to stay connected, informed and productive. We see an expanding opportunity in helping consumers to use the powerful capabilities of their phones and to access the array of content and services available on the mobile Web”.

“We understand how to unlock the extraordinary potential of the mobile experience with speech. VoiceSignal’s roster of solutions, language experience, relationships and talented employees will help Nuance deliver on the promise of the mobile lifestyle for consumers, device manufacturers, carriers and mobile Web content providers.”

And this is what Rich Geruson, CEO of VoiceSignal, had to say:

“By combining forces with Nuance, we can accelerate the realization of our common vision for mobile handsets: to eliminate the input bottleneck from small, mobile device keypads and make accessible to users the full power of mobile devices”.

“Joining Nuance’s assets with our capabilities in mobile positions the company well in the exciting, dynamic market of mobile search, where a voice interface will be the key to unlock its potential.”

The combined company has got some big plans in the world of voice synthesis and recognition, including voice-based mobile search, speech to SMS/MMS, voice-activated dialing, and all sorts of other goodies. Definitely one to watch in the coming months!
 

Link: Poll: Majority Would Buy Google Or Yahoo-Branded Mobile Device - Mobile Blog - InformationWeek

Interesting figures here, courtesy of a study by The Equs Group, which shows how strong the Google and Yahoo brands are when it comes to associating them with mobile devices.

A recent study by The Equs Group shows that 55.5% of U.S. consumers would purchase a mobile device made by Google or Yahoo if such hardware existed. That’s a lot of trust in brands that have no history in actually designing, engineering and manufacturing mobile devices.

Is mobile search that important to people? According to Equs’ numbers, yes. Nearly 69% of respondents regularly use mobile search tools on their phones. There must be a perception that Yahoo or Google branded devices would offer a superior search experience.

Looks like the traditional big players such as Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Motorola may have some serious competition if the likes of Google and Yahoo get into the market. With convergence being the buzz word on everyones lips lately, it’s only a matter of time before the dot com and cellular markets collide - and there’s sure to be some casualties.

Link: webitpr | CommProve Shortlisted for Global Mobile Award

CommProve, the world-leading provider of mobile network radio Quality of Service (QoS) monitoring solutions, is delighted to announce that its Netledgeâ„¢ 3G Radio QoS solution has been shortlisted by the GSM Association for a Global Mobile Award in the category Best Network Quality Initiative.

Netledge is the only permanent, network-wide monitoring system for 3G radio networks.  It has been developed to identify poor levels of radio performance including coverage gaps, dropped calls, low data rates and inadequate voice quality.  All these issues directly lead to subscriber dissatisfaction, reduced service usage & lost revenue.

“Subscriber dissatisfaction” is another way of saying “annoys the hell out of”.

I trust that T-Mobile, and, for that matter, Vodafone and the other mobile networks around the place are going to invest in this sort of monitoring system (or similar) as it would be rather useful.

EVEN TODAY I still have problems with call quality. Most specifically, I have problems calling Hetty who’s Vodafone signal appears to be absolutely dire, despite livig in connected-Clapham.

I’m pleased to be able to bring you an SMS Text News EXCLUSIVE report from our man on the ground, Steve Procter.

EMBARGO — 4th December 2006

4th December 2006, LONDON - It was announced today at a clothing retail conference in Amsterdam that a brand new global clothes retailer is to launch early in 2007 with what is seen as a revolutionary new business model.

TatMart will not sell clothes but instead signup customers on 12 or 18 month contracts, during which time they can come in to any of the planned 200 stores worldwide and select an unlimited number of pieces of each item (tops, shirts, skirts/trousers, shoes, underwear) which will technically be rented for the duration of the contract (note that there is a fair usage policy to this which limits the total number of pieces to 23).

Customers will pay an attractive monthly fee for the service and at the end of the contract will be able to upgrade their items to the latest fashions and renew their contract for a further 12 or 18 months.

Only 3 fashion houses have been chosen to supply TatMart although it is rumoured that all of these are using the same OCM (Original Clothing Manufacturer) in China.

Initially each fashion house has produced just 10 pieces for each of the items to be offered but it is expected that throughout the first year this range will drastically increase and there will be options for customers to upgrade mid-contract to the latest styles.

At this time it is believed there will 7 different tariffs to cover everyone from small children through teenagers, young adults and even business people. There will be a seperate range of business suites and office shoes on the business package, together with a special business clothes advisor in each store who is fully trained in the art of power dressing.

Tariffs will range from £12 to £55 per month. It is not understood at this time how a pay as you go scheme will work although company officials have confirmed that they are investigating methods of making this idea work as “it is believed it will be very popular with many of the young people”.

Each of the initial 200 stores is to have a coffee shop; and curiously a strange clause at the bottom of the press release states that security staff will be told to stop people entering the shop carrying any other coffee or food items.

Cups of TatMart branded coffee will be priced at £7.50 per cup, although an “all you can drink” tariff will be available for £37 per month (with a fair usage policy we found in the smallprint that limits a person to 16 cups per month).

Other well known brands of tea and coffee will be available but a “corking fee” will be charged for these, making the total cost per cup £12.35 - and these will not be included in the all-you-can-drink tariff.

At ClothConf in Amsterdam where TatMart was launched yesterday, Tim Bryce-but-Wim, head of refreshment services said that:

Coffee and cake services are very important to us as they will help cover the huge costs of leasing the incredible centre-of-town landmark properties that we have taken on. Local councils and government, especially in the UK have levied huge taxes and retail licences on us and so it is important that we find a way to claw those setup costs back without hitting our monthly contract fees for clothing rental.

A retail industry expert listening in on the conference was heard to utter the words “hogwash” but as yet this rumour cannot be confirmed.

Whilst TatMart has leased 200 of the most incredible landmark sites around the world (one being the corner of Regent Street near Oxford Circus in London, one of the capitals most expensive retail properties), it is said by industry experts that security in the stores will be very “controlling”.

All clothes will be mere demonstration pieces, using similar looking materials but of a much cheaper fabric and sown together without the same degree of care that final items will have. They will also be tethered to the racks to ensure people cannot walk out with them. However TatMart confirmed that they will have a few pieces of the real merchandise held behind the counter for those customers who insist on trying them on.

All staff are to be on commission and it is rumoured that certain pieces carry better commission and so will be pushed harder.

Because the clothing items are technically being rented from TatMart, there will be an optional insurance policy that staff will be pushing. It will cost £78 per year and cover clothes for all risks worldwide; except countries where there is a current conflict or potential natural disaster or lots of rain. Items left in cloakrooms or lockers will also not be covered.

In addition, any items being worn by other people (for example if a customer lends a jacket to his brother) will not be insured. Customers should read the insurance smallprint because these clauses were only found on page 4 amongst half a dozen other rather revealing clauses.

Finally it can be revealed that whilst this is a new global initiative, UK customers who wish to go and shop in any of the TatMart shops abroad will have to pay an excess of £38 per item that they purchase in the overseas stores. Furthermore, we have discovered that all clothing items contain an RFID chip and the contracts clearly state that clothing is for UK use only.

TatMart intends to install RFID monitors at its Manchester, Gatwick, Heathrow and Luton airport shops as well as in all of its overseas branches. If anybody is detected wearing a TatMart item at the airport or overseas then their account will be charged an additional £4.50 per day that it is being worn outside the UK.

Customers who wish to signup for an account at TatMart will need to take full photo ID and a bill showing their address to their nearest store. The process is said to only take 30 minutes whilst TatMart check the persons credit and take all their bank details for the 12 or 18 month contract.

Once signed up they are then able to come into the store whenever they wish and take a ticket for the next free member of shop staff who can show them round the items of clothing and talk them through the seasonal fashions and which items of clothing they believe will work best for the customer.

[ends]

—-

Curious, it seems like Steve went to a similar conference to me last week…

Pure class, Steve, thanks for sending and allowing me to publish!

Are you looking for a particular application or feature? Is there a mobile application you’d really like to see developed? Well, perhaps there’s a Christmas treat in store for you from iTagg. Check out this note from Steve sent to iTagg’s customers:

Hope you are well and your business is building up to a big Christmas. We’ve put our thinking caps on at iTAGG and have come up with what we believe is a cool and unique way of developing some further mobile services for our clients without it costing the earth. We’ve experimented with this for a few other clients and it has worked well. The idea is that you tell us what your dream mobile services would be and we group together the common ideas that are bound to come from a number of you and then split the costs between all clients who want the service.

We trialed this for something specific that three existing clients required and they ended up paying just a third of the development cost. By writing to all of our clients we are looking to find enough of you so that you only have to pay a tenth or even a hundreth of the cost.

So can you please send me your dream list of services that you would like iTAGG to build or provide. Big or small, please send us every idea you have, whether it is using sms, mms, premium billing, user generated content, integration of mobile with websites, wap, java, etc. Just throw your ideas down and email them to me now. You never know, you may just get that dream mobile solution in time for Christmas and at a fraction of the true development cost!

Strictly speaking, you really need to be a client to make a request, but that’s straight forward to achieve — fly off over to and register an account or give Steve and his team a call.