In this presentation from the 2008 Emerging Communications Conference, Nitzan Shaer, COO of Mobivox, tells how modern speech recognition technology and personalization can make telephones both easier to use and easier to communicate with.  Despite revolutionary advances in technology, the telephone experience hasn't changed much in the last 100 years.  Everyone gets the same century old dial tone and you always have to enter long numbers to call anyone.  Also on cellular phones, it is often difficult to even hear the other person.

Mobivox is trying to improve all of these factors.  Advanced features like voice dialing are available on some smart phones, and phones where you can install Skype have free VoIP calls, but this is a tiny part of the phone market.  Mobivox software has local access numbers in 44 countries, where you can call in and access Voxgirl, the helpful voice menu system, call around the world for free, and store personal preferences.  Also, call quality is improved because noise reduction is done on a personal instead of general basis.  There is a platform and developer program, and the service has had over 500,000 people sign up in the first 4 months.