Voice recognition technology is still in its early adopter stage but Yahoo! is betting that it will be a hit with its tech-savvy users.

The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based media company Wednesday launched new voice recognition capabilities in its Yahoo! by Phone and Yahoo! Phone Card services.

The technology is a amalgamation of speech recognition technology from Menlo Park, Calif.-based Nuance, VoIP network and voice-hosting infrastructure from Net2Phone and text-to-speech technology from SpeechWorks International, Inc..

With the improvements Yahoo! says its by Phone service now recognizes voice commands, allowing subscribers to use their voice to navigate through personalized information such as e-mail, voicemail, news, weather and stock quotes.

Yahoo! by Phone is available for $4.95 a month.

In addition, the Yahoo! Phone Card now has voice recognition capabilities, which lets consumers access their personalized Yahoo! Address Book entries or dial domestic calls with the sound of their voice, from any phone nationwide.

A Yahoo! Phone Card can be purchased in three increments -- $10, $25 and $50 -- the user then simply dials 1-800-44-YAHOO to initiate a call.

"We are thrilled to offer consumers voice recognition features, making it even easier to access essential services anytime, from virtually everywhere," says Yahoo! Everywhere director Madhu Yarlagadda. "As part of our Yahoo! Everywhere voice and data strategy, we will continue to introduce new ways for people to access Yahoo!."

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The system is expected to compete with other voice recognition services such as the ones from Tellme Networks. BeVocal and Vocal Point Inc. are Bay Area companies also competing in the voice portal space.