Sprint Ups The Mobile Search Ante

Sprint and Microsoft put their strategic partnership to use and developed a new search platform for Sprint subscribers. It ties together Live Search, LBS services and voice-based search to provide better local search results.There's nothing more frustrating than performing a search from your mobile phone and having completely useless results show up. You may have been looking for Dr. Smith, but rather than get the two or three closest Dr. Smiths, you get several who happen to be on the other side of the content. Not very helpful.

Sprint has jumped into the ring with Google and put up its dukes. Sprint's new search service will help find local results by turning to GPS information and filtering the results based on your location. (For those afraid of Big Brother, you can disable the GPS information.) The Live Search is performed the same as any other, via Sprint's mobile Web home page. It searches the entire Web, local listings, maps and Sprint's content. By using the built-in GPS capabilities it eliminates the need to manually enter location information, such as a zip code. This ensures results that are more relevant to the end user.

In addition to the local results, Sprint is easing the way you enter text in the search field by letting you speak the search listing. This requires an additional download of Microsoft's Tellme technology, which is free but is only compatible with certain handsets.

Voice-enabled search and better local results equals a simpler and more effective way to perform mobile searches.

Now if only it could help me find me keys...