A new service which captures speech and converts into to-do lists, shopping items and diary entries on a mobile phone is the latest mobile application in what is believed to be the fastest growing sector of the mobile industry.

The ReQall service acts as a memory jog for customers as well as a point of entering key information. It has proved a hit in America and is now in discussions with European operators to push the free service.

ReQall CEO and co-founder, Rao Machiraju, said: ‘It gently nags me and reminds me until I fulfil that task. it’s like a second brain.’

‘We wanted to spot and process what is being said and convert them into actions. It recognises what you say and put it into the proper bins. If you said I need to buy and adapter. We understand what you said and put it into your shopping list.’

ReQall has capitalised on the burgeoning applications market, fuelled almost single-handedly by Apple’s 3G iPhone.

There were apparently 10 million application downloads in the first week of the 3G iPhone launch, with services varying from ‘urbanspoon’ (a restaurant finder, including reviews and GPS-based directions) and the complete works of Shakespeare.

Apple has said it has made £15m in application sales during the first month of the 3G iPhone going on sale.

Applications are divided into paid-for and free. Free services such as ReQall aim to engage customers into the free one before attempting to lure customers into signing up for other paid-for applications at a later time.

See feature this week.