It has become clear that the new fighting ground for voice recognition is search on mobile phones. Developing an application that has great user experience, and can be deployed onto a variety of handsets across a number of carriers…you may as well start working on turning lead into gold.

Both Microsoft and Google have woken up to the value of leveraging the voice user interface for their local search offerings (it’s what the bloody phone was designed for anyway). Live Search 411 and GOOG-411 have been put through their paces, and the results of the Ars Technica review are very promising for the humans.

While Google’s service was less quirky slightly faster, the functionality of Microsoft’s won their hearts:

"Microsoft’s LiveSearch411 is the perfect service for anyone traveling or planning to travel, and I highly recommend it. I also loved that it remembered my last search, because I’ve been disconnected or had to redial 411 countless times in the past. Further, it offered to share my results with another phone user, which is a great option for those traveling in groups that are trying to reach the same destination from different cars or starting locations. LiveSearch411 was also able to find destinations in low-population and obscure areas, which is probably when 411 is needed most during a road trip."

Do the current crop of personal computer designs make you yawn? Can you just never find that one machine that speaks to you and compels you to spend your hard-earned money?

If you want to do something about your sad state of affairs, look into the Next Generation PC Design Competition. Mock up a machine designed specifically for your own digital media compulsions, but don’t neglect the entry questions, such as concerns around actually building the thing and the customer experience from the moment they sit down with the box.

Your online submissions must be recieved by December 14th, and then come February 15th, the voting public will spend a month punching their radio-button ballots for which designs they really want. The five finalists will end up as special guests at WinHEC, with enough cash and cache to get your masterpiece bourne into the real world.

This Seattle PI video of the Zune 2 user interface posted on Zunerama is the first I’ve seen, and it certainly looks the business. I’m glad the first press photos showing that big, brash main screen weren’t a big tease.

New hardware is always exciting and today there are shiny toys from Redmond. The sleek flash-based players come in some lucious colours, while the eighty gig daddy will only be available in black. The new toys will be had for around $250, $200, and $150.

Software is the centerpiece of the Zune story this morning. Wireless syncing to the desktop has been implemented, and song sharing has been updated. No longer do shared songs carry a three day lifespan, but only a three play cap. Also, shared songs can now be re-shared other Zunes. Those who already own Zune devices (no snickering) will also apparentluy recieve a software update to maintain feature parity with today’s hardware.

Jeff Leeds covers the Zune update for the NYT, as well as Larry Larsen on Channel 10, and the ongoing Techmeme Zune thread.