Voice-controlled Asus Eee PCs due in H2 2009

Asus certainly looks to be pushing the boundaries of notebook/netbook technology. Having already announced that it expects its Fold/Unfold concept to have a commercial release this year, it has also mentioned that it wants to see ‘the end of the keyboard’ according to an interview with Asus CEO Jerry Shen.

Asus expects to launch its first Eee products (both netbook and nettop segments) which implement voice-recognition in the second half of this year. “Actually, internally we have one team dedicated to studying voice recognition. Touch and gesture input is universal, whereas language is not universal,” said Jerry Shen. It sounds like something that the company does seem to be pushing hard with dedicated teams in place working with third parties in both Japan and the US.

Now what I am confused about is that Asus Eee PCs have had some element of voice control features since the original 701. Back then, a number of apps could be launched by talking into a microphone. Now that was based on the Linux distro, so maybe Asus will be expanding this voice functionality into a Windows based system. Either way I’m not entirely sure what Asus has in store for us.