Blinkx Offers Audio/Video Web Search

Search company Blinkx launched a free service Tuesday that scans radio and television programs and automatically delivers information to a customer’s computer.

Visitors to Blinkx.tv define the information they want. San Francisco-based Blinkx then scours video and audio sources using voice-recognition and transcription software.

The free service, called SmartFeed, allows a user to choose among more than 30 channels from which to receive content, including BBC News, CNN, NBC and ESPN.

When the information sought by the customer is found, a link to the desired material is created and then shipped to the user’s PC.

This is similar to a traditional Really Simple Syndication feed, which compiles written content from news, blogs and other text-based sites and notifies users via electronic alerts.

What enables Blinkx to hunt for spoken information is the speech-recognition technology, which Blinkx licensed partly from Autonomy, a company based in Britain.

As for how Blinkx plans to one day be profitable, founder Suranga Chandratillake says the money will come from multiple revenue streams, including ad sales.

“We’re biting the bullet right now just so we can get the product right,” Chandratillake said.