The Voice Search Conference winds down around 5pm tonight, but by then I’m on the flight back to NY.

Another journalist I spoke with said he got all excited when he listened to the opening keynotes, but was inevitably disappointed towards the day’s end due to the overall lack of focus on voice search itself.

I feel similarly; many of the panels didn’t have a lot to do with voice search (and they all could have used more live demos. If you’re going to hawk a solution, I’d like to see it in play). Loquendo’s Paolo Baggia told me during lunch that he was going to give a talk called Improving the user experience.

“It’s not really about voice search, though…” he said.

Both Bill Scholz and Bill Meisel stated in the panels they moderated that they’d defined voice search “very broadly.” To what end? To what extent is it beneficial to have such a vague definition? If you’re going to devote an entire three-day conference to a topic, shouldn’t that topic be clearly defined?

The conference did highlight issues regarding voice search (whatever that may entail). Click below for the rest of the article.

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It’s time for another edition of the Speech Tech blog’s regular feature, “Crushes & Hexes.” Appearing every Wednesday, we highlight companies, places, technologies, or people we deem praise-worthy, or cringe-inducing within the speech/tech/IT world. As always, your feedback is appreciated! Email us at blog@speechtechblog.com if you have a crush or hex item you’d like to see online.

Crush: Voice Search - The Cool Kid on the Block
Why We Love It: According to everyone, voice search is the coolest, prettiest, funniest, most awesome new kid on the block. He will change the way we search on mobile phones, interact with multimedia content, and he’s so all-encompassing that he has his own conference! This March, we’re sending our own Ryan Joe to check out the Voice Search conference in San Diego. OK, it used to be SpeechTEK West, but we’re willing to overlook the name change. Make sure to look for Ryan at the conference, or contact him (rjoe@infotoday.com) if you’re interested in speaking with him during the show.

Hex: Bill Gates
Why We’re Hating: Last month, Bill Gates was heralding speech as part of the Digital Decade (a little bit late, eh?), and this week, he’s causing all kinds of eye-rolling among human rights activists. Why? Because B.G., during a speech at Stanford University yesterday, was quoted as saying:

“I don’t see any risk in the world at large that someone will restrict free content flow on the Internet. You cannot control the Internet.”

Oh, really? If that’s so, one blogger wondered, why was Microsoft complicit with the Chinese when the country enforced Internet censorship? Bill, we’re waiting for an answer…

James Dean image [eb.com] & Bill Gates image [tla.ch]