Nuance Communications, the Burlington, Mass.-based speech recognition company, has acquired Philips Speech Recognition Systems, a business unit of Royal Philips Electronics specialized in the European healthcare industry, according to MocoNews.

"The acquisition defers from other recent acquisitions in the mobile space, including SNAPin, which develops customer service software for mobile phones, and a failed attempt at buying SMS technology company Zi Corp."

Nuance said in a statement that this latest acquisition will allow it to deliver speech-driven clinical documentation and communication solutions to healthcare organizations throughout Europe, according to the article. There's been lots of under-the-radar action in voice-to-text and speech recognition services on mobile platforms. We're keeping an eye on this, mainly to see if any of the technology makes its way to consumer cell phone user interfaces.

A new New York Times article says that the era of the U.S.-dominated Internet is ending. While Americans created the Internet back in the 1970s, and most traffic flowed through the U.S. during the next thirty years, that's beginning to change in a major way.

Andrew M. Odlyzko, a professor at the University of Minnesota who tracks the growth of the global Internet, said in the report, "We discovered the Internet, but we couldn't keep it a secret," noting that while the United States carried 70 percent of the world's Internet traffic a decade ago, he estimates that number has fallen to around 25 percent today.

Meanwhile, some engineers who help run the Internet said in the article that it would have been "impossible for the United States to maintain its hegemony over the long run because of the very nature of the Internet; it has no central point of control."

All of this points to a decidedly global future for not just the desktop Internet but on cell phones as well—especially given that cell phones have had a head start, due to their greater data and mobile media options available overseas in comparison to the U.S.

(Image credit: iStock/New York Times)

Next-generation smartphones are leading the drive to push mobile data revenues upwards of $100 billion by 2017. That's about a 16% growth per year, according to figures from SNL Kagan as reported by Online Media Daily.

During the same timeframe, the market researcher forecasts that the number of overall wireless customers will grow by only 2.9%, but the number of new mobile data users will grow by an average 5.8% over the next decade.

AT&T and Verizon Wireless are well ahead of the game when it comes to strong data service growth. The number one and two mobile operators respectively saw their mobile data revenue grow 52% and 45% in Q2 over the year-ago period.

(Image credit: Clipart.com)

The in-flight calling ban has passed its first major hurdle—House approval in Congress. Also, as Engadget reports, the bill picked up some much needed approval from the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in a voice vote on Thursday. This builds on the FCC ruling last year that prohibited cell phones from being used at all in airplanes.

We're hoping for an arrangement similar to what's happening elsewhere in the world, where callers would be able to use their cell phones primarily for data, and where actual voice calls would be restricted, so as not to drive everyone trapped in a 200-foot-long flying tube completely bats.

(Image credit: Clipart.com)

Slashdot reports that after a lengthy beta period, Boston-based MobileSphere launched what they're calling a 'straight-to-voicemail' service called Slydial. Here's how it works: Call 267-SLY-DIAL and listen to a short ad. Then the service will then connect you to any cell phone subscriber's voice mail box in the U.S., without causing their phone to ring beforehand.

As the report said, "sounds kinda useful—but, incredibly, MobileSphere is pitching the service as a way to avoid actually communicating with all those difficult, boring people in your life." In response, the company said it's just fighting technology with technology, letting people take back control of whether or not they want to talk to co-workers, family, and friends, according to the story. There are also a bunch of videos on the site, illustrating, um, example situations where you'd want to do such a thing.

One of the biggest worries for Americans traveling abroad is the fear of needing medical attention in a non-English-speaking country. HTH Worldwide, a health and safety services company, has a new mobile application to take care of that fear.

Dubbed mPassport, the subscription service has a database of some 4,200 English-speaking doctors and dentists in 180 countries as well as listings for more than 1,000 emergency care locations around the world, according to Mobile Marketer.

Geared towards vacationers, Americans living abroad, students and "globe trotters," mPassport works on any Web-enabled mobile phone. HTH charges $9.95 for 30 days, $15.95 for 60 days or $49.95 for a full year.

Bytemobile, which provides mobile Internet solutions for network operators, has launched a new version of its Web Fidelity and Media Fidelity services that optimize the delivery of PC-quality ad-supported Web and video content to mobile handsets.

Specifically, the new releases feature Web site transparency; optimized Web browsing with navigation bar support for smartphones; expanded Web and multimedia adaptation and new navigational aids and other features for enhanced usability.

With mobile site transparency, PC content is transparently adapted and dynamically optimized according to the specific capabilities of each mobile device. Mobile content is served to the device as is, without adaptation, and optimized only to accelerate speed.

Additionally, the new release of Media Fidelity Service dynamically adapts and optimizes multimedia content in multiple formats, including Flash, Windows Media and MP3. It also now supports streaming media downloads as well as embedded media in all formats.

Cell phone companies targeting younger teens might need to change their marketing approach over the next few years. According to a new report from MultiMedia Intelligence, there aren't a whole lot of 12- to 17-year-olds left in the US without a mobile device. At the end of 2007, more than 16 million kids in that age group had a cell phone, up 12% from 2006. Don't expect this type of growth to continue, the market researcher warns, because forecasts predict only an additional million subscribers through 2012 due to near market saturation.

One way for carriers to gain more new young subscribers would be to market to the even younger crowd. MultiMedia Intelligence found that more than half of teens have a cell phone by the time they turn 13 and become an actual teenager.

Frank Dickson, MultiMedia's chief research officer, notes that the teen market has been the sweet spot for wireless operators, not only because of the number of subscribers, but also because the ARPU for teens is higher than the overall mobile market. "Teens simply use their phones to do more, from text messaging to purchasing premium content," he said. "However, pricing pressures and teen cellular saturation are bringing an end to the teen cellular gold rush."

(Image credit: Jupiterimages Unlimited)

BlackBerry users are getting another useful application before other mobile phone owners. E*Trade is launching a free mobile app called, appropriately enough, E*Trade Mobile Pro that lets its customers monitor their portfolios, get real-time stock quotes, create watch lists and even conduct trades right from the handset.

E*Trade says the new mobile service makes it the first major US broker to offer real-time quotes and cash transfers on a mobile device, WirelessWeek reports.

The brokerage house hasn't said if versions of Mobile Pro for other types of phones (iPhone anyone?) are in the works.

Folks in the UK who want to take advantage of all the fun features of their mobile phones but don't have a clue about how to send a picture or download a game now have a new service that takes away the pain of learning.

ConfigureMyphone.com from WDSGlobal is a direct-to-consumer service that has aggregated mobile data service settings from the major UK mobile operators and more than 4,000 e-mail service providers.

Consumers just visit the Web site; choose the service they want (send/receive photos or e-mail, browse the Internet, download games); type in their phone model, number and operator and wait to receive an SMS with all the necessary settings. The company claims that the whole process generally takes less than 90 seconds.

The service works for Orange, Vodafone, T-Mobile, Virgin, O2, 3 and a number of MVNOs and supports more than 1,500 phone models. It costs a pound per configuration plus the operator's standard SMS fees.