Microsoft Partners With Audible For Better Speech Recognition, Available Today For WP7.5

In a canned video demo, Microsoft gave an update to its speech recognition software that allows users to have a conversation with apps. Sounds like Siri, right? To be fair, Windows Phone has had speech recognition capabilities since launch.

But today, Microsoft announced a partnership with Audible for improved speech recognition. In the video demo a woman jumps into her car and launches turn-by-turn directions from an address that was texted to her. Maps quickly notified the driver that the normal route is backed up by an accident and asked whether she wanted to take a different route. Driver acknowledged the new route but the software took it a step further and asked whether her date should be notified via text that she may be late.

Audible and the tools necessary for developers will be available later today for 7.5 devices.