Callpedia brings spoken knowledge to your phone

Got an email from Stephen Keegan, the founder of Callpedia.com yesterday. It was a rather lengthy mail, so rather than do some random cut and pasting I thought I’d give the service a try and write a quick review.

Here’s the deal. Callpedia is like a talking encyclopedia for your mobile. Think of a subject, then just text it to a number. Wait a few seconds, then call a different number. All the information you’ve just asked for will be read to you.

Having sunk a few last night, I tried texting in the word ‘Guinness’ to the service. About 30 seconds later, I dialled the number. After a bit of weird stuttering, a strange robotic male voice started talking. I had to concentrate hard, as it didn’t initially sound like English. But with a little bit more listening, it was English – just not very understandable.

Give it a go for yourself and let me know what you think. Text your query to +353 873 204 111, then give it 30 seconds and call +353 766 020 331. Obviously from your mobile and without the CLI barred, or else I’d imagine it breaks horrendously 🙂

It’s a nice concept for a service, but please fix that awful synthesised voice! Takes me back to the days of my ZX Spectrum with it’s Currah Microspeech.. things have moved on a long way since then!