Zumba phone promises world's best voice-recognition system

James Sherwood of Reg Hardware writes.

You’d probably expect a groundbreaking mobile phone to be developed deep inside Nokia’s HQ or in a military bunker. However, a supposedly super-secure handset described as the world’s first truly hands-free mobile has, in fact, been designed on an industrial estate in Hereford, UK.

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Manufacturer IA Technology’s claimed that its bizarre Zumba phone sports the world’s first fully accurate voice-recognition system for mobile phones, according to the Beeb.

The device is made of two parts. The main body – which is about the size of a credit card - looks much like an iPod, although the scroll wheel’s divided into alphabetic sections.

A hearing-aid-style earpiece detaches from the phone’s back. This then becomes the phone itself, which the user makes calls and creates/sends text messages from using only voice recognition.

Contacts aren’t stored on the phone itself but on a website – thought to be called... er... "Zumba Lumba" - that the company told the BBC is 100 per cent secure.

“If you lose this phone it is instantly useless to anyone else,” an IA Technology spokesman claimed.

The company said it hopes to have the Zumba in shops before Christmas. But, much like the phone’s technology, a potential price is being kept secret.