Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

MobileSphere recently launched a free voice messaging service called (very aptly!) Slydial, that connects you automatically to someone’s voice mail so you can leave a message when you don’t feel like going through the conversation mode, or are pressed for time.

Some of the scenario’s they present where Slydial could be especially useful are quite humorous, others very realistic.  Feel like taking a play day and you are calling in “oh so sick” and don’t want to actually talk to your boss? There you go. How about that “let’s just be friends” call that you’re too chicken to actually have the other person on the other end of the line listening to because you don’t want to hear an hour’s worth of sobbing? Uh-huh. Want to call and thank Great Aunt Bessie for the lovely birthday sweater she sent you, but don’t want to hear all about her aches and pains for a half-hour? Yep, you’re seeing where this could come in handy, aren’t you?

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Visual Voicemail has proved to be an effective way of receiving and checking your voicemail, now instead of listening to every message you can listen to just the important ones, and save the rest for later.

This is a feature that we first saw on the iPhone with AT&T, however since then Sprint has also begun to offer it on the Samsung Instinct and now Verizon has become the latest with their LG Voyager.

The visual voicemail will come as part of a new software update and will be offered free of charge for current owners. It will also be included on a new model of the Voyager that has been dubbed the Voyager Refresh.

Verizon has also stated that the visual voicemail feature will be available for other models, but have not given any information on which will be included or when we can expect it.

Read [Verizon] Via [PhoneArena]

You know that free visual voicemail solution called YouMail? Well they have recently added a new service that will let users view voicemail messages from their mobile phones, in the same way that they could previously access them online through a PC.

Although this YouMail offering is not the first of its kind service, their voice to mobile phone conversion service took it one notch higher by retaining the audio and organizational features of its regular service, meaning its not a stripped down mobile version. Users just need to point their mobile phone’s browser to http://youmail.com, login to their YouMail account and they can start viewing their messages as they normally would from a laptop or desktop computer. This new mobile offering includes all the regular feature to include the contact’s images, ability to listen to voicemail messages and then even reply or forward to those messages.

YouMail’s voicemail to mobile phone service will be available for several smartphones including some from BlackBerry, Nokia, HTC, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, and even Palm. We will just have to wait for further announcement as to which specific models will have the YouMail service available. And yes, YouMail said that it will also work on the iPhone.

Product [YouMail] Read [News.com]

SimulScribe offers a great service, one that is a benefit to anyone who dislikes checking and responding to voicemail. They convert your voicemail message to text and then deliver it to you as either an email or text message, to which you can then respond to the “voicemail” by return message. This is a wonderful option to have, especially when you need to check and respond to messages but are in a setting where using and speaking on a phone would be considered rude. It also helps to save time, because you can simply read the important parts of the message and get the details you need without having to listen to whoever is leaving the message ramble on and on.

While all this sounds great, and there service works wonderful their name has been holding them back. The name SimulScribe was born from “Simultaneous Voicemail Transcription,” and while its a catchy name, it turns out that a name with missing letters is not always a good way to get customers to be able to find you easily. 

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The voice to text service company, Jott, has brought its voice recognition technology to BlackBerry devices. Using Jott’s technology BlackBerry users can now reply to email using their voices. The Jott voice recognition technology works with the BlackBerry 8800, 8300 and 8100. By using Jott for BlackBerry, you will be able to reply (at least according to Jott) 3-5 times faster than typing the message out, you will be able to send more personal replies and possibly most important be able to keep your eyes on the road while replying to email, of course in order to reply you would have had to read the message first.
Jott for BlackBerry also works with Bluetooth headsets. If you are interested, simply download and install, Jott will then automatically add a “reply with Jott” option to all emails that you receive from then on.

Product [Jott for BlackBerry] Via [Boy Genius Report]

To add another chapter to the “Samsung Instinct = iPhone P0ZER” book, Sprint has licensed the visual voicemail feature for the Instinct from none other than Klausner Technologies. If you remember back just a little bit, Klausner sued AT&T and Apple after they unveiled they were going to use visual voicemail because their version, allegedly, infringed on their technology. The Instinct already has the full touchscreen going for them (except for three buttons near the bottom) along with a full web browser, and the big touch-icons on the screen.

With more and more phones picking up some of the features the iPhone has, like visual voicemail, this should keep pushing Apple to innovate even more which in turn, gives us more features to look forward to in the next generation of phones. So I say, hats off to Samsung and Sprint, competition is a good thing.

Via [I4U News]

The voice-to-text conversion service industry is not yet too crowded, so I guess there’s room for one more player in Nuance Communications’ VoiceMail to Text service for converting voicemail into a readable text. Nuance’s Voicemail to Text service is a network dependent mobile service that allows users to read voice messages left on their phone mailboxes.

Although we’ve heard about this kind of service before, Nuance is nonetheless touting its advanced speech recognition technology backed by 3,000 transcriptionists to deliver accurate, scalable, reliable and flexible transcription of voice messages. Nuance also uses what it calls the Dragon Naturally Speaking speech recognition technology for converting voicemail into text that users can read, edit, save, forward, index and archive to read them some other time.

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Alltel has announced a new, and fun (or possibly annoying) way to customize your outgoing voicemail greeting. Voicemail MAX will allow Alltel users to create personalized outgoing greetings using the voices of celebrities. Voicemail MAX currently has more than 500 audio clips that include content from people such as Larry the Cable Guy, Steve Harvey, Orlando Jones and T.I.

Voicemail MAX is available on select Alltel phones and each greeting will set you back $2.99. The Voicemail MAX application can be downloaded and previewed for free using your phone’s menu.

Read [Alltel]

We all pay more than enough for our cellphones and service fees so any opportunity to get some good/free services to go along with them are hard to pass up. Here are five that may make your life easier without forcing you to dig into your pockets:

• Free 411 - Why not save that $1.75 each time you forget someones phone number and make use of 800-FREE-411 (800-373-3411). A computer or human being looks up a number for you at no charge, once you’ve listened to a 20-second ad. Your other option is to text Google at 46645 (Google - the e) with what you are looking for and where (i.e. “Pizza 90210” or “Best Buy Dallas TX.” Within a few seconds you will have 2-3 suggestions returned with the name, address, and phone number.


• Tons of information - Google’s 46645 also sends the weather (“weather new york"), stock quotes (“amzn”), movie showings, definitions, driving directions, unit conversions, currency conversions, and more. If texting isn’t your thing or you don’t have a SMS plan why not call 800-555-TELL for travel, traffic, news, stock quotes, sports scores, movies, restaurants, directions, or taxi.


• Call international - Want to call beyond the US borders without severe charges? Why not just make a call to Iowa at 712-858-8883, press 1 for English, enter 011, the country code and the phone number.


• Alternative voicemail - YouMail is new voice mail for cell phones.  It allows you to record unique voice greetings for anyone who calls you, based on their caller ID. Individualize your voice greetings for friends, family or important callers while maintaining a standard greeting for work and unknown callers. You can check your voice messages from any phone or via the web and forward favorite messages to anyone via email. Best of all DITCHMAIL hangs up on unwanted callers after your custom greeting for them is played. YouMail works with Cingular, Verizon, and T-Mobile and is free for users who sign up while there are still beta accounts available.


• One number to rule them all - Do you have multiple phone numbers causing you to miss calls when you are in the wrong place? Check out Grand Central to get all your numbers combined into one and then forwarded back out to the right place so you never miss an important work call while you are on the road.


• Mobile Search via a live person - 1-800-KNOW-NOW (1-800-566-9669)
  is a mobile search oriented service that allows you to speak with a person who will search for information for you online.� You can ask for directions, 411 info, and as well as anything else that exists online (so essentially anything).� A nice alternative to the voice recognition and text message world.� Though after a few calls you need to register online. [Thanks Jack]

What is Pheeder? A new way to talk on your cellphone: you use it to communicate with groups of people simultaneously, with a single phone call. Just call Pheeder, leave a message, hang up, and seconds later all of your friends receive the message at the very same instant. Then, if they want, they can reply to your message, or forward your message on to their friends.

It’s phone2.0, the next generation of phone calling, putting you in touch with everyone you want with a single call.

I don’t know about it being a so-called 2.0 feature but it seems like a cool idea. Hey readers, would you use a feature like this?

[Thanks John]