Industry | software |
---|---|
Founded | 1 June 2006 |
Founder | Mike Phillips John Nguyen |
Headquarters | , |
Services | speech recognition |
Parent | Nuance Communications (2012) |
Website | vlingo |
Vlingo was a speech recognition software company co-founded by speech-to-text pioneers Mike Phillips (later co-founder and CEO of Sense Labs, Inc)[1] and John Nguyen in 2006.[2] It was best known for its intelligent personal assistant and knowledge navigator, also named Vlingo, which functioned as a personal assistant application for Symbian, Android, iPhone, BlackBerry, and other smartphones.[3] Vlingo was acquired by speech recognition giant Nuance Communications in 2012.[4]
The application uses a natural language user interface to answer questions, make recommendations, and perform actions by delegating requests to various applications.[3] Vlingo Find and other iterations were known as first-to-market innovators in speech-to-text recognition.[5] With adaptive hierarchical language models, Vlingo improves its speech-to-text recognition as it learns a user's speech and search habits.[6] It was the first technology of its kind to use adaptive hierarchical language models to learn from the corrections a user would make.[5] Vlingo servers analyze speech queries and send any recommendations or possible corrections back to the user.[6] This technology allows users to text, search, and navigate smartphones without typing.[3]
Vlingo had its own application with over 5 million users in addition to partnerships with a number of companies, including Yahoo,[7] Samsung,[8] RIM, and Nokia.[9] Vlingo ships by default on Samsung Galaxy S2 devices,[8] and Vlingo worked with Samsung to create S Voice personal assistant (available on the Samsung Galaxy S3 and newer Samsung Galaxy devices.)[8] Vlingo also powered early versions of Siri (before Siri was acquired by Apple).[10]