[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4amvRLG4un8[/youtube]
Today the company Nuance announced the acquisition of the Vlingo company that has a voice command recognition system implemented in many Android terminals. The two companies have had several open lawsuits over time, but it all ended recently and Vlingo has now become an integrated part of Nuance. Nuance is the company whose voice recognition system is used by the Siri assistant in the iPhone 4S, but things are now much more complicated since Vlingo was acquired.
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.
Considering this purchase, I think that many Android terminal manufacturers will give up implementing Vlingo in their own devices and I would not like to think that Apple is in the middle. Nuance is an independent company that acquired a strong competitor and now has the opportunity to collaborate with any smartphone manufacturer, although I have a vague impression that Apple will have the biggest benefits.
