When Apple introduced Siri, an intelligent digital assistant for the iPhone 4S, it showed off a new way of interacting with mobile devices. There is already rumours of Google working on its own Siri rival dubbed Majel, named after departed actress Majel Barrett-Roddenberry who provided the voice of the Starfleet computer in Star Trek.  

Now Nuance Communications has announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire Vlingo, the company behind the voice recognition app of the same name, which is available for Research In Motion’s BlackBerry smartphones, Android-operating smartphones, Nokia’s Symbian-running devices, as well as the iPhone.

The two companies stated that they will combine their research and development expertise in order to deliver next-generation natural language interfaces across numerous markets and industries.

According to Nuance Communications consumer interest and demand for virtual assistant and voice-enabled capabilities have grown dramatically in the last couple of months. The company sees a $5 billion market opportunity that spans smartphones, tablets, cars, smart TVs, satellite navigation devices, music players, as well as PCs.

“Inspired by the introduction of services such as Apple’s Siri and our own Dragon Go!, virtually every mobile and consumer electronics company on the planet is looking for ways to integrate natural, conversational voice interactions into their mobile products, applications, and services,” said Mike Thompson, senior vice president and general manager of Nuance Mobile. “By acquiring Vlingo, we are able to accelerate the pace of innovation to meet this demand.”

“Vlingo and Nuance have long shared a similar vision for the power and global proliferation of mobile voice and language understanding. As a result of our complementary research and development efforts, our companies are stronger together than alone. Our combined resources afford us the opportunity to better compete, and offer a powerful proposition to customers, partners and developers,” said Dave Grannan, CEO of Vlingo.

 

In related news LG Electronics recently unveiled its Magic Remote controller, which is to be used with its CINEMA 3D Smart TVs and implements voice recognition technology allowing users to enter text such as search terms via voice commands.