Yahoo Inc has unveiled new features to make Web search easier and more relevant to mobile phone users, the latest step in its battle with Google Inc in the next frontier for Web use. Yahoo aims to make millions of Web links more accessible on phone, by tapping deeper into the sites and by enabling consumers to use voice commands to search the Web.
Yahoo unveiled the latest version of its OneSearch service as it forges ahead with its mobile Internet strategy in the face of an unsolicited Microsoft Corp takeover bid.
The company has stuck deals with dozens of operators around the world to reach a potential 700 million phone users with mobile Internet services. Yahoo is targeting deals to reach 800 million users. Yahoo is opening up the way it finds search results for mobile phone users by allowing publishers to provide highly categorized information that gives them more control over what content users see and how it is presented.
Voice commands:
Yahoo also will let OneSearch consumers use voice commands for search services that go beyond existing mobile voice recognition systems or 411-based services that are structured into simple categories, such as 'local listings'.
Conventional speech recognition services limit potential search topics to certain items using very basic vocabulary. OneSearch allows 'wide open' searches for flight listings, locations, website names, restaurants, and news or game times.
Voice searches can take as little as five seconds: one to two seconds to recognize the search and two to three seconds to return search results to the phone. Slower networks may take 10 to 20 seconds to return most search results. Started in the April, 2008, Blackberry users can download voice-enabled OneSearch at http://m.yahoo.com/voice. By the end of the year of 2008, yahoo planed to introduce the service on 500 different devices and in international market
Yahoo unveiled the latest version of its OneSearch service as it forges ahead with its mobile Internet strategy in the face of an unsolicited Microsoft Corp takeover bid.
The company has stuck deals with dozens of operators around the world to reach a potential 700 million phone users with mobile Internet services. Yahoo is targeting deals to reach 800 million users. Yahoo is opening up the way it finds search results for mobile phone users by allowing publishers to provide highly categorized information that gives them more control over what content users see and how it is presented.
Voice commands:
Yahoo also will let OneSearch consumers use voice commands for search services that go beyond existing mobile voice recognition systems or 411-based services that are structured into simple categories, such as 'local listings'.
Conventional speech recognition services limit potential search topics to certain items using very basic vocabulary. OneSearch allows 'wide open' searches for flight listings, locations, website names, restaurants, and news or game times.
Voice searches can take as little as five seconds: one to two seconds to recognize the search and two to three seconds to return search results to the phone. Slower networks may take 10 to 20 seconds to return most search results. Started in the April, 2008, Blackberry users can download voice-enabled OneSearch at http://m.yahoo.com/voice. By the end of the year of 2008, yahoo planed to introduce the service on 500 different devices and in international market