Speech recognition technology got a tryout on the second day of Upside's Digital Living Room conference today, and was a screaming success.

Alex Quilici, Quack.com's president, CEO and cofounder, successfully got the weather report for Sarasota, Fla. Amol Joshi, BeVocal's co-founder and vice president of products, got driving directions from his Los Angeles-area home to an address at 110 South Victory Blvd. in Burbank. And TellMe cofounder Angus Young got the results of the latest Lakers-Pacers game, as well as a recommendation for an Italian restaurant in the Tribeca area of New York City -- plus a phone call to the restaurant, which told him how late they would be open that night. These "voice portal" services bring the Internet to the telephone by interpreting a spoken set of commands and questions and delivering responses drawn from information accessed online. The "Talking Web" panel demonstration indicated that the services, currently available through subscription or toll-free numbers, seem to be working. Remarkably, advances in speech recognition technology seem to have come close to solving the problem -- if not with 100 percent accuracy.