The Wildfire Electronic Assistant lets someone get messages and faxes and perform other commands from any phone and using simple spoken commands. Wildfire, founded in 1991, sells the service to telephone carriers, particularly wireless carriers, who then provide it to customers either for free or monthly fees. Customers include Pacific Bell Wireless in California, Orange PLC of the United Kingdom and Bouygues Telecom of France. An Italian version is in development. People like the assistant.
People feel like they're talking to someone.
It makes it a more personal experience. Regulation also has played a role, Hartnett says, pointing to the likelihood that California soon will adopt laws banning holding a phone to your ear while driving or placing a call while on the road. Thus, hands free and voice-activated systems become more crucial. The future MIT's Zue believes audio indexing will be big in the future. A member of SpeechWorks' board of directors, Zue also believes phone-based information services like SpeechWorks and Menlo Park, California based Nuance Communications will be very successful.