vlingo text box SDK Frequently Asked Questions

Technical Questions

How do I use vlingo in my application?
Vlingo is designed to replace the text box in your mobile application. By matching the native text-box API on different mobile development environments, it should be very easy for developers to replace the native text box with the vlingo text box to get access to the basic speech-recognition functionality. To complete the integration, developers also need to support various callbacks to display menu commands and warnings that may be generated by vlingo to users.

Can I build my own client?
The vlingo client ensures a consistent user experience, and contains fixes and workarounds for various issues which would degrade user experience, such as issues with audio recording in various devices. Vlingo does not provide access to the server-side processing without the vlingo client software.

What if vlingo doesn't support a handset that my product needs to run on?
At the time of general availability, we intend to support all popular Java and BREW handsets. We will continue to add new devices over time, including virtually all new models as they're released by their manufacturers. We will add support for Symbian, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, and Palm devices over time, on separate schedules. If you require one or more devices that are not currently supported, please contact us.

But I need total control over the appearance of the text box.
By extending the native text box drawing capabilities of BREW, J2ME Forms, and J2ME Canvas, vlingo should give you as much control over the presentation of your text box as you have currently.

Is my customers' data secure?
Vlingo encrypts all user data passing between the handset and our servers. This includes the user's spoken utterances and the resulting transcribed text. As a developer, it's important for you to understand the unique security characteristics of speech so that you can plan your applications accordingly. Users may be overheard while they are speaking. Vlingo also reserves the right to record user utterances for quality improvement purposes to improve recognition accuracy for your users. Vlingo takes security very seriously and has implemented appropriate measures to safeguard user data.

What languages does vlingo support?
Vlingo currently supports English. Our technology is trained on, and tuned for, United States English. It will work with users from other English-speaking areas, though accuracy will likely not be as strong because we haven't yet trained our recognizer to understand local accents and speech patterns from other countries.

Other languages and nationalities are planned for 2008 and beyond, and will be prioritized according to customer and market demand. If you have a need for vlingo in one or more other languages or geographic regions, please contact us.

Who can I contact if I have a technical question?
Developers accepted into our beta program will be given a technical contact when they're accepted into the program. Once the vlingo text box SDK reaches general availability, support contacts will be provided to you when you register as a developer.

Commercial Questions

My application is priced as a one-time sale, not a subscription or revenue share. Vlingo's rev share model doesn't work for me. What can I do?
Because vlingo is a network-based service, we incur a cost every time a user speaks to your application. A fixed-price model would have to be priced too high to be attractive to most of our customers. In some cases, we may be able to provide you with pricing to meet your needs. This would be the exception, not the rule, and would generally be considered only for applications with non-recurring revenue streams.

The BREW logo is a trademark of QUALCOMM, Incorporated.