TORONTO—Bell Mobility has launched a new service that will read news, weather and e-mails to subscribers over their mobile phones. The service, called VoiceNet, also understands thousands of different accents. It is the latest product to emerge from BCE’s C$70 million (US$43.7 million) convergence fund, which was created last year. Bell Mobility is calling VoiceNet a first-of-its-kind in Canada.
For an additional C$5 (US$3.12) a month, regular subscribers can take advantage of three features. By saying “My News,” a customer can have audio snippets of the latest local, national and sports reports played back through a handsfree headset. The news content comes from the Sympatico-Lycos portal. By saying “My Weather” and the name of any North American city, special software will read the latest weather report for that destination. Also, by instructing the mobile concierge that you want to listen to your e-mail, the system can connect to most standard e-mail services and give a text-to-speech translation of messages, excluding attachments.
