Ask.com launches mobile voice assisted driving directions

by Jason Harris Jan 6th 2008

Clever web based tools on your mobile phone have made getting around the city much easier in the past year or two. We've always had 411 service, but now services such as GOOG-411 will SMS us the address so we have it on us after the call. If you've ever been asked, "What's the name of that great pizza place on 4th? It starts with Mel's", using mobile search tools you can probably easily find out. Figuring out how to get there, however, has always been the tricky part.

Just recently, Ask.com entered the mobile directions fray by introducing speech-activated driving directions. That's right - by using "Click to speak", you just tell the service your current address or intersection and it will send you a text message with directions that can be utilized by walking or driving. This impressive step forward eliminates the necessity of having to type in the address.

This is especially important if you are a) a slow typist on a mobile phone or b) driving and need to have your attention on the road and not keying in your current address.

Here's how it works. Go to Ask.com Mobile's homepage at m.ask.com, go to the "Voice Entry" link next to "Directions". The service will call you, allowing you to speak your starting address and ending address. You can also access the voice entry if you've found a business through their mobile yellow pages by speaking your starting address. The system uses the business' address as the ending address automatically.

Very cool technology. So far it has worked pretty well for us and will only get better as the speech service refines it's voice recognition.

Tags: ask.com, mobile

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

JP said 5:30PM on 1-06-2008

Shame, when I read 'voice assisted' I had hoped it would be something along the lines of "At Smith Avenue, turn right. Say next for your next instruction". Now that would be useful.

michael said 5:55PM on 1-06-2008

Speaking of Goog 411, can you guys do a complete review about Goog 411 vs. Live Search 411?

Google's probably going to win anyways, but I would like to hear yous guys thoughts about Live Search 411 (since you guys never did wrote anything/much about it) and if does anything better than Google's 411 Search.

I just want to see a review. Please give one.

Featured Time Waster

Civiballs is a beautiful, soothing physics puzzle Time Waster

I have an absolute weakness for physics games, and while Civiballs isn't the strongest physics-based game, what it lacks in the physics department it makes up for a few times over in style and fun.

In Civiballs, you are presented with a few colored balls, and your goal is to get those balls into the same-colored urn on the level. The "civi" part of Civiballs is that there are 3 sets of levels to play, each representing a different civilization. While the civilization doesn't affect gameplay, the artwork for each level is beautifully themed to it's appropriate era.

To play the game, you are given only one tool - a sword with which to cut the chains that are holding the balls. The puzzle part of the game is in figuring out what order, and with what timing to cut each chain. Do it right, and all the right balls end up in the right urns, with no stray balls entering an urn (a no-no). Do it wrong, and you get to start over again.

Civiballs is not terribly deep on gameplay; the entire game can be completed in about 15 minutes. But if you enjoy this type of game, it will be a very enjoyable 15 minutes.

View more Time Wasters