Today we cast aside the black veils, cease mourning for Lauren, and resume blogging.

Yesterday, we posted a story about SpinVox’s involvement with MTV’s Staying Alive foundation, which aims to educate young people about sex (we called the story Sex with SpinVox, which we’re going to have to change because when we send it out on our e-newsletter, the word “sex” automatically triggers the spam filters. Context, people!).

While the cause is good, I wonder about the delivery method. A SpinVox spokeman pointed out that “there’s no denying the power of voice on a variety of levels. The idea is to have a spontaneous discussion about sex, sex education, and the issues around HIV, AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.”

Vocal communication certainly exposes you more than, say, typing a blog or into a comment box (I’ve always been interested in personal blogs because you get not so much a sense of an individual personality but a sense of how an individual wants his or her personality to be perceived by others).

On the other hand, when I was a teenager, I never had a problem talking about sex; I just could never talk about it seriously. Some things never change. Additionally, would I be comfortable speaking about intimate matters to a speech-to-text engine? I don’t think so.

I don’t even like talking to my friends’ answering machines. If I have to talk to a friend about something sensitive, I’ll either try to do it in person or–and this might just be my neuroses taking over–actually write out what I want to say on a notepad and recite it.

In looking at the website, I’m not seeing a lot of helpful discussion about sex or STDs (sample comment: I like cake). Additionally, some of the prompts aren’t particularly helpful either (sample prompt: Let’s talk about fantasies and the random celebrity you want to shag).

The fact of the matter is, if you want to open up a truly insightful dialogue with teens about sex, it needs to be just that: a dialogue. SpinVox providing an STT engine, while the intentions are well-meaning, is sort of limiting.

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And, oh, yeah, speech in the iPhone? We’ve got it covered. Or as of last year we did. Recently, Nuance announced that it has developed a voice search app for the iPhone called vSearch:

Looks to me like they’re capitalizing off of that VoiceSignal acquisition back in 2007.

Of course, when VoiceSignal demoed vSearch on the iPhone, it was a proof-of-concept. Now, according to CNET, Nuance plans to sell the downloadable app in August. The July/Aug issue of Speech Tech Mag will have an FYI section that covers this in more detail.