Webware

Everybody chuckled when Tellme, a mobile voice company snapped up by Microsoft almost two years ago, released its smartphone voice search application for BlackBerry, instead of for Windows Mobile. Thanks to a new native application that will be released on Windows Mobile 6.5 phones this coming fall, the ribbing may entirely subside.

On Wednesday, Tellme announced the application's features and its shipping plan. Like rival voice services for smartphones, you click a hardware hotkey to initiate the program's digital ears, and from there you can begin a search, call a number, or dictate a text message. This last feature will be new to Tellme's Windows Mobile app.

(Credit: Tellme)

Tellme's application will offer more voice services than the straight voice search that Yahoo Mobile, Windows Live Mobile, and Google Mobile App are currently capable of, but after watching Tellme's demo here at CNET, it appears that it won't be as fully stocked as Vlingo when it's released. Vlingo--a free voice service for BlackBerry and iPhone, but not yet Windows Mobile--adds greater dictation powers, including launching native applications, updating your status on Facebook and Twitter, and reading back e-mail messages.

Another notable difference between the two is the fact that Tellme is integrated into Windows Mobile at the network level--which one would expect from an acquired company--and that at launch, it will only search using Microsoft Live Search. We understand the prerogative, but the app is much likelier to succeed in offering choice.

Like many contemporary mobile apps, Tellme for Windows Mobile will also use GPS or cell phone tower triangulation to localize searches, making a search for "weather" or "movie theaters" serve up businesses in your neighborhood. It's hard to say exactly how Tellme will stack up to its competitors, but when it comes out alongside Windows Mobile 6.5 we'll let you know.

Tellme for Windows Mobile phones will be available beginning Wednesday to manufacturers that want to load it onto Windows Mobile 6.5 phones. Come autumn, the general public will be able to find it (in English) on the phones, in the Windows Marketplace for Mobile, and directly from Tellme's mobile-optimized site.

(Credit: Google)

Windows Mobile owners tired of opening their browsers every time they want to start a Google search can now put that habit to rest. On Wednesday, Google released a version of Google Mobile App for Windows Mobile phones (rate it here).

On Microsoft's mobile platform, the free, native application installs a home screen plug-in from which you can launch a handful of Google's mobile services. About two thirds of Google Mobile App is dedicated to its search field. The other portion is populated with thumbnail icons that open your Gmail, Picasa Web albums, Google Docs, and so on, in your default browser, except the Google Maps icon, which will open or install Google's downloadable map and directions application on your phone.

While Google Mobile App for Windows Mobile surfaces your history and search suggestions just like the BlackBerry and iPhone versions, the Windows Mobile version is the first not be a full-screen application. Even when you open Google Mobile App for Windows Mobile from the program menu, you'll see it as a strip floating at the top of the screen.

Treating the mobile app as a horizontal swatch is actually an asset, thanks to some time-saving tweaks Google added to this version--like mapping the app to a hot key so you can start a search without having to first open an app from the program list, and searching within a specific domain. These make Google's mobile application a quick-acting reference resource for anyone with a Windows Mobile phone.

Google Mobile App will work on Windows Mobile smartphones and Pocket PCs in the US, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany, and Spain.

On Tuesday, Microsoft released version 4.0 of Windows Live Search Mobile, its downloadable search and map app for Windows Mobile 5 and 6, which the company demoed last week at CES.

With this release, Microsoft is finally starting to catch up to other free clients doing mobile voice and text search on other platforms--Google Mobile App, Yahoo Go, and Vlingo among them.

From left to right: bird's eye view, query auto-suggest, and directions.

(Credit: Microsoft)

Taking a page from Google's book, perhaps, the new Locate Me feature in Windows Live Search Mobile can work on non-GPS phones to zero in on your approximate location. If that fails, you can easily add your location manually instead.

Predictive text is also new--when you type a query into the search box, the app will suggest a search term in order to save your fingers some typing. The app did better remembering past queries than it did predicting new ones, and it did not begin suggesting new search terms until we were almost done typing them.

In addition, the search box will now accept mixed queries; for instance, if you speak or type a business name and city into the search box, you'll see results for the business in that second location, without changing your master location. Hunting down a Dunkin' Donuts in Boston when you're living in San Francisco is one example.

Bird's Eye View is the splashiest of the added features, adding a third mode to map-viewing that's akin to Google's Street View. The landmarks we saw were clear, but the view is limited to "select urban areas" and grays out if the one you want isn't part of it. We hope the selection will expand soon.

These additions enhance Windows Live Search's otherwise well-integrated features--click-to-call, SMS, driving directions, and search modules that focus on traffic, movies, gas stations, and weather in your area.

Google is making it easier to check up on the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing from your mobile phone.

Searching for any Olympic sport on Google's mobile Web site will bring up, in addition to the regular search results that Google would normally offer, a timetable of Olympic schedules and results for that event. The search also works in 35 other languages, and Google has created an additional mobile Web site as a general repository of Olympic information.

When results start to come in, mobile searches for things like "swimming medals" and "French medal count" will bring up relevant Olympic data too.

The Olympics tie-ins are a little bit more extensive on Google's regular browser search; other search engines, such as Yahoo, are doing something similar. Google is also serving ads on NBC's online-video coverage of the Olympics using its DoubleClick technology.

If text-based mobile search just isn't fancy enough for your precious handset, NBC will be serving up mobile video to customers of Verizon's V-Cast service, thanks to a partnership between the two companies. Additionally, video-on-demand will be available to Verizon's Fios television service.

Click here for more stories on tech and the Beijing Olympics.

Semantic search tool Powerset has put out a new iPhone app this week. Those looking to search on the go can now use the service's plain English searching capabilities to scour the entirety of Wikipedia and Freebase (coverage). The app comes after months of Powerset staff fumbling while trying to use their own product on the popular mobile device.

The new tool will pull up everything the desktop version does, although I found performance to be a tad slower--even over Wi-Fi. Outline, one of my favorite Powerset features that gives you quick links to each section in a Wikipedia article, has also made its way into the pocket version. While not as convenient as the desktop version which sits beside the actual Wikipedia article, it's a great way to skip down to a lower section of an article, which is normally an activity that makes you look like a complete idiot while you continuously drag your finger up and down the screen of your phone. There's also a much needed search function, something the iPhone's version of Safari is lacking from its desktop sibling.

I expect the company to come out with its own native app that will save past searches and let you store local content depending on how popular this version becomes. I've embedded some screens below. Also embedded after the break is a demo video of it in action.

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Updated 2:30 p.m. PDT with comments and photos.

LAS VEGAS--Yahoo announced upgrades to its Yahoo OneSearch product at the CTIA trade show here Wednesday that it says make mobile search smarter, more relevant, and easier to use with voice-activation technology.

Marco Boerries, the company's executive vice president of "connected life," introduced the new Yahoo OneSearch 2.0 during a keynote address, promising "instant answers to any query, not just Web links." This means that search results will expand from traditional hyperlinks into other media--a search for "New York" could yield subway schedules, for example, or a search for local sushi restaurants could bring up Zagat's ratings and reviews along with one-click reservations. And searching the name of a friend could provide links to the social-networking sites that the friend uses.

Yahoo is leveraging technology that it's used in a project for its PC-based search tool called "Search Monkey," which consists of a set of open-source tools that allow users and publishers to annotate and enhance search results associated with specific Web sites. The two applications share the same APIs (application programming interfaces), and Boerries said he expects some 1,000 publishers to work with them to help make search more relevant.

Also central to OneSearch is voice-enabled technology. "Consumers can search for anything, including flight numbers, locations, Web site names, local restaurants, and more, by simply speaking," a release from Yahoo detailed. The voice-activation software is now available for download on a number of Research In Motion's BlackBerry devices, and Yahoo has said that over the next few months it will be compatible with more handsets.

Yahoo OneSearch 2.0 combines search results with other published information.

(Credit: Marguerite Reardon/CNET Networks)

Yahoo is using voice-activation technology from Vlingo, which announced Wednesday that Yahoo is the lead investor in a $20 million Series B funding round. As part of that investment deal, Yahoo has exclusive rights to the technology.

"We liked the technology so much that we invested in the company," Boerries said during a press conference following his keynote speech. "But we made sure that our competitors can't use it."

Boerries also said that Yahoo's voice-enabled search is different from Microsoft's more limited voice-enabled search because Yahoo's service allows people to find results no matter how they say a term or phrase.

OneSearch also includes a download called Search Assist, which encompasses recommended search results, predictive typing technology to speed up the amount of time it takes to enter a query--a key feature for small mobile keypads. Currently, this is only available for Apple's iPhone.

Yahoo plans to update OneSearch in the second quarter of 2008 with something that it calls an "idle screen search service," so that people can access the mobile Web and the search technology without needing to open their cell phones' Web browsers.

OneSearch 2.0 is Yahoo's latest attempt to stay ahead of rival Google in the mobile market. At the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona earlier this year, the company unveiled its Yahoo OneConnect mobile messaging and social-networking platform, which still has yet to debut publicly.

Yahoo pushed out the original OneSearch product at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last year.

"With the launch of Yahoo OneSearch in 2007, we revolutionized mobile search by recreating search specifically for the mobile phone," Boerries said in Wednesday's keynote address, adding that a total of 29 carriers worldwide are now OneSearch partners. "With Yahoo OneSearch 2.0, we are fundamentally changing the way consumers use the Internet on their mobile phones."

News.com's Marguerite Reardon contributed to this report.

Google integrates apps on iPhone and offers word suggestions when you type.

(Credit: Google)

Google has optimized its applications for the iPhone so they are integrated into a single interface and operate faster.

Now, if you go to Google's home page on your iPhone you'll see the Web search box and links to Gmail, Calendar and Reader up at the top of the screen for quick access.

Google also offers word suggestions as you type to make the query entry faster.

And once you click on links, the pages download faster than before. "When you click it's instantaneous," says Gummi Hafsteinsson, a senior product manager at Google. "Just like on the desktop; there's no difference between the two."

Google plans to optimize its applications for other phones eventually, he said.

Links to Google Maps and YouTube are on the main menu of the iPhone.

The past month has seen Windows Live services gathering force. At the CTIA conference (coverage) in late October, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer demonstrated a new feature in Windows Live Search for Mobile: voice-activated search (see interview with CNET News.com.) This past week, CNET editor Elsa Wenzel reviewed Microsoft's suite of Windows Live services for the desktop. In the video below, I give you a first look at Windows Live Search for Mobile in action. 5...4...3...2...1...

New research is finding that people don't mind ads when they are searching for something online but don't relish the idea of getting ads, even local business ads, on their cell phones.

A new survey from Nielsen/NetRatings and WebVisible of consumer behavior and attitudes around online advertising finds that nearly three-quarters of U.S. Internet users believe they are overexposed to advertising. And nearly as many say they prefer finding products and services through search engines than having ads sent directly to them.

Of the nearly 2,000 people surveyed last month, most said they only get ads they want or need from the Internet (56 percent) and television (53 percent).

(Credit: CNET News.com)

And search engines are where people are going most when doing shopping research--74 percent said they use a search engine to look for a local retail or service business. That beats the number who still use the yellow pages (65 percent), Internet yellow pages (50 percent), local newspaper (44 percent), white pages (33 percent), television (29 percent) and consumer review Web sites (18 percent).

A whopping 92 percent said that receiving local business ads on their cell phones would be irritating. Eighty percent have researched a product only to buy it from a brick-and-mortar store.

And don't think consumer ratings and reviews aren't heeded. Sixty-seven percent said they would probably avoid a restaurant with only two stars, while 90 percent said a hotel review that said it was "noisy with uncomfortable beds" would keep them away. For sure!