Voice Note Application for Mobile Tested

Recite lets Windows Mobile users store audio voice notes on their mobile phones and then later retrieve those notes simply by speaking a few words from the note into the handset. Although not a commercial product at this point, similar technology could eventually be built into the Windows Mobile platform, improving its appeal to end users.

The application was created by Microsoft’s Startup Business Accelerator group, which is charged with finding new business areas for Microsoft to enter, and was released as a free technology preview in Feb. 2009. Recite has a simple two-part user interface: users select the “Remember” button to record their thoughts into the receiver on their phone and select the “Search” button to conduct a search query by saying a few words from the recording. Recite uses that speech fragment to find and play back a matching recorded note. If no results are found, the user can scroll through the list of notes manually.

Recite is not a voice-recognition program, but simply matches audio patterns between the search query and the original note. It cannot recognize particular words and translate them into commands or convert them to text. The Web site says that Recite is available only in U.S. English, and early reviews suggest that the technology might not work as well with English speakers from other countries.