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Vlingo iPhone App Adds Voice Command for SMS and Email Messaging

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While voice search and voice-to-text have  been default features  of Google’s Nexus One, Vlingo which pioneered voice control app for the BlackBerry last year believes that this technology can be extended to email messaging. As such, Vlingo has updated it’s iPhone app by adding the ability to send e-mail and SMS messages using voice commands.

Vlingo is offering these two new features as in-app upgrades which you can choose to get by paying $6.99 for each feature or $9.99 for both. This may seem a pretty fair deal for email messaging but not for SMS especially if you’ve use the Nexus One’s free voice-to-text app.

While I have no plans of getting Vlingo with these features for my iPhone, Mashable’s Christina Warren notes that the app’s voice-activated web search lets you select your default search engine although you can still use other search engine if you wish to.

She also noticed that voice recognition is pretty good as well. Hopefully better than the Nexus One’s poor voice recognition feature. Now, I’m beginning to get interested with this app. You know what, I think I will get this as soon as I’ve checked if my iPhone still has some room for another app.

In addition to this, Vlingo has also updated its iPhone app’s interface by making it more streamlined and easier to select what options you want to use.

I’m currently downloading Vlingo (iTunes Link)  from the Apps Store right now. Will update this post as soon as I test out these features.

Update: Alright, I agree, Vlingo’s voice recognition is pretty good. It was able to recognize what I said the first time I tried it. Yes, it’s better than the Nexus One’s voice recognition feature. I’m getting the paid features now.

TigerText Mobile App Lets You Set a Termination Date for your Text Messages

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How about this? – A text message that expires on both your phone and the receiver’s device as well. Sounds cool, right? The patent-pending technology was announced recently by a company called X Sigma partners and is currently available at the Apps Store. But soon, it will also be available for BlackBerry and Android devices.

In brief, here’s what TigerText can actually do:

“For the first time, you have complete control over what happens to your texts after you hit the send button. It brings safety and peace of mind to anyone who sends messages that are intended to remain private.”

TigerText lets you send text messages that delete off on your phone and the receiver of your text messages after a set period of time.  The text messages that you sent disappears from the phones and are not stored on any server. That means that you can’t retrieve the text messages anymore after it’s lifespan expires.

It practically answers your need to keep your text messages private. I mean, you can even set the lifespan of your text into as less as one minute, well if you think that it’s enough time for your recipient to read your text, why not?  Talk about giving you peace of mind, right?

The TigerText app also features an easy-to-use interface, making sure that you don’t have to learn another set of new applications methodology. It’s similar to the text messaging app of your iPhone.

The app is available now from the Apps Store for free. If you use it now, the first 100 messages that you will send or the first 15 days  of your usage will be free. After that, it will cost you $1.49 per month for every 250 text messages. Or if you want unlimited texting, you can opt to pay $2.49 per month.

Symbian Hard at Work to Make S^4 at Par with iPhone and Other Platforms

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Ironically, while  the iPhone, Android and BlackBerry mobile platforms have been pretty much covering the smartphone market, previously major players such as Palm and Symbian are now trying to catch up with them. Symbian for one has recently released S^3 which signals the mobile platform’s transition into the free, open-source route.

And now, even while fans are still awaiting for Symbian ^3 phones to come out, Symbian is already hard at work on its latest version – Symbian S^4.

The folks at Fierce Wireless checked out the latest iteration of what use to be the most popular mobile platform, Symbian S6 and unfortunately were underwelm by what the new Symbian platfrom has to offer. Basically, the new Symbian S64 looks and acts a lot like the iPhone and Android. Although Nokia informed Fierce Wireless that what was demoed during the Mobile Web Congress is still a work in progress. It is by no means the final look and feel of Symbian ^4.

Symbian S^4 will be a completely redesigned  mobile platform which was built from the ground up including a new programming language in place. Previous Symbian OS were built on C++, but now it is based on Qt. So this means that old apps written for old versions of Symbian including S^3 will not run on the new Symbian S^4.

It’s still a long way to go before we see if Symbian will be able to reclaim its lost glory and whether there will be new cool phones to run on Symbian S^4.

Opera 10.50 Browser for Mac Makes You Want to Forget About Safari

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Alright Mac users, if  you’re tired of using the stock Safari browser on your machine but you don’t feel like using Google Chrome for Mac or Firefox, how about Opera 10.50 for Mac which is now available for download?  This new version of Opera for Mac is said to be using a new Javascript engine and boasts of key features like HTML5 support and multi-touch gestures.

Honestly, I’ve never used the Opera Browser on a laptop or desktop before. The only time I used it was on my old Sony Ericsson P990i mobile phone. But that was a long time ago. For all I know, both the Opera Mini browser for mobile phones and the Opera desktop browser have probably gone through several revisions already.

Anyway, here are the new things that you should expect in the latest iteration of Opera browser for Mac:

  • More stable than the pre-alpha build
  • A whole new polished UI
  • Supports Opera Unite allowing you to download unite apps from the Unite Apps Repository
  • Supports HTML5 tag
  • Supports widgets as stand-alone apps
  • New menu for Developer Tools

Now, why did we say that Opera 10.50 for Mac might make you forget about the Safari browser that comes preloaded in your Mac? Well, blame it on the guys from 9 to 5 Mac who’ve tested the browser and found that it beats Safari in a WebKit Javascript benchmarking test.

You may want to give Opera a try on your Mac, get it from here.

Facebook Allows PayPal Payment for Ads, Virtual Goods

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If there’s one important point that you can get from this news, it’s got to be the fact that Facebook wants you to advertise on the social network. And to make it easy for you to do that, Facebook is now accepting payments through PayPal.

With PayPal activated as a form of payment, you can now run your ad campaigns and get wide visibility through the this planet’s most famous and widely used social networking site. Like what the Facebook PR said, the site reaches 400 million people, 70% of whom live outside the United States. Can you imagine how huge your the audience for your ad campaigns would be?

If you’re running a small business which caters to exporting and importing, here’s your chance to expand your market.

In addition to accepting PayPal payments for ads, Facebook is also doing the same as a payment option for Facebook credits that ca be used for games and apps as well as for buying items from the Facebook Gift Shop.

“We want to give the people who use Facebook, as well as advertisers and developers, a fast and trusted way to pay across our service,” said Dan Levy, director of payment operations, Facebook.

And PayPal’s VP of Platform and Emerging Technology  sums up what this development is all about:

“Put simply, PayPal’s business is payments. We make it easier for customers to send and receive money online in 24 currencies and 190 markets around the world,” said Osama Bedier.

So, if you don’t have a PayPal account yet, now maybe the right time to create one and proceed with your advertising plan on Facebook.

Mobile Phone is the New Social Connector

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Ruder Finn, an independent PR company published some interesting findings of their new study – Mobile Intent Index. The study measures, well mobile phone users’  intent for accessing the Internet via their mobile devices.

According to the report, the average time spent by Americans on the mobile Internet is 2.7 hours. And what do they do during those times?  To socialize, manage their personal finances and push their advocacy.

Contrary to what we may have believed all along, mobile phone users do not access the Internet via mobile phones for educational purposes or for creative expression.  The study also found out that usage by gender and age differ. That is men access the mobile web to “escape” while women to “make others laugh.” Now that seems rather vague, right?

Another interesting finding of the report is the fact that immediacy is the major factor why users access the Internet via mobile.

“Our survey data shows that people use their mobile phones out of necessity for instant access to the Web whether it’s to conduct business with the most recent information or advocate on the spot on issues of pressing concern and breaking news,” said Marty McGough, director of Ruder Finn Insights

The study also highlights the fact that mobile phone apps are continously increasing with 61% of the respondents saying that they have downloaded an application at least once per month, and 36% of the respondents saying that they have downloaded applications from social networking sites at least once per month.

As a mobile connector, mobile phone access is used primarily to:

  • Instant message – 62%
  • Forward e-mails (58%), content (40%) and photos (38%)
  • Post comments on social networking sites – 45%
  • Connect to people on social networking sites – 43%

Interesting findings, right? So, which of these connectivity features do you do on your mobile phone?