Talk to the Phone

Mobile phones can do lots of things: search the Web, download music, send e‑mail. But the vast majori ty of the 233 million Americans who own them never use them for more than calls and short text messages. One reason is that other features often require users to enter sentences or long search terms, a tedious task. Speech-recognition interfaces could make such features easier to use. Vlingo, a startup in Cambridge, MA, is coming to market with a simple user interface that provides speech recognition across mobile-phone applications.