AT&T inks speech recognition deal with Vlingo

AT&T announced a new licensing agreement and strategic alliance with speech recognition solutions provider Vlingo, a deal the operator said will make its mobile data services more accessible and easier to use. Per terms of the deal, AT&T will incorporate its Watson voice recognition tech into Vlingo's speech-enabled applications, enabling consumers to use their voice to create and send text messages and email, search the web and access social networking services. Per terms of the alliance, AT&T also will take a minority stake in Vlingo, recently named one of the Top Mobile Applications of 2009 by FierceMobileContent.

Vlingo currently offers applications optimized for iPhone, BlackBerry and Nokia devices.  The firm says millions of subscribers have downloaded its current application suite.

For more on the AT&T/Vlingo deal:
- read this release

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