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Monday, November 17, 2008
Google Voice Search Application Coming to iPhone...Soon
Donna Fuscaldo
FOXBusiness
Users can soon ask their iPhone a question and get search results from Google (GOOG) thanks to a soon-to-be-launched application on the Apple (AAPL) iPhone apps store.
According to news reports and blogs, the voice search application, which was expected to be unveiled on Friday will be available for free at the apps store later Monday. At press time a search of the apps store showed the applications wasn’t available yet.
The software lets you ask questions from where the closest Best Buy (BBY) is to which baseball team won the most World Series. The application translates the spoken word and spits back local results. It’s the first application of its kind for the popular iPhone.
According to Wired, the application was suppose to go live on Friday but Apple didn’t add it to its store, underscoring how Google is subject to the same review process that other software programs for the iPhone is.
While voice recognition has been used at call centers for years it’s now starting to take off for mobile phones.
vlingo, a Cambridge, Mass., speech-recognition technology company, earlier in the year launched a service for the BlackBerry (RIMM) that lets you make phone calls and search the mobile Internet via voice commands.
The software, which can be downloaded at vLingo.com for free, will translate your speech into text and send back text-based information. For instance, if you want to know the address of a restaurant in Boston or what the weather will be, all you would have to do is ask your BlackBerry. The service lets users send emails and text messages, search the Web, open applications, dial phones and look up contacts.
Tellme, a subsidiary of Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft (MSFT), also has a voice activated service for BlackBerry. Like vlingo, Tellme’s service is free to download and lets you access information like directions, movies, traffic information and weather via voice. Since Tellme’s service works with the local Internet it can recognize your most recent position based on GPS and give you local results. If you say “maps” you’ll see a map of your current location. You can change the map location by saying a different city. You can also get movie listings, buy movie tickets, see weather reports and traffic updates simply by saying the keyword from the main screen.
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Not everyone has the financial ability to own and rent out multiple houses for extra income. And even fewer people want to deal with late night calls from tenants crying about their broken oil burner. Well, thanks to real estate investment trusts, or REITs, you don't have to deal with the stresses of being a landlord to make money off of the real estate market.
A REIT is any entity that pools money from a group of investors to buy different kinds of real estate or real-estate-related assets, such as buildings or mortgages on buildings. It uses the income from rent and loan interest to pay out a steady monthly dividend to its investors.
There are three types of REITs. The most common one is an equity REIT, which simply buys buildings and generates revenue from the rent it charges. Mortgage REITs loan out money to owners of real estate for mortgages or buy existing mortgages to collect interest, which is then paid out to the REIT's investors. Finally, there are hybrid REITs, which are a combination of mortgage and equity REITs.
REITs can be public or private. Public REITs are bought and sold just like stocks and are listed on exchanges, while private REITs can only be bought through direct-participation programs. With private REITs, the investors are actually part owners of the real estate rather than just shareholders of the REIT corporation. They can't sell shares and they typically have to keep their money tied up for eight to 12 years. However, there's the benefit of less volatility since the market can influence public REITs.
One potential drawback to REITs is how they are taxed. While qualifying equity dividends are normally subject to only a maximum of 15%, the dividends from REITs are taxed as regular income, which could be much higher -- depending on how much money you make.
