The invention is directed to techniques for navigating a network based on
audio input to retrieve information from a network. A user enters audio
commands into a two-way communication device to access information
located on a network, such as the Internet. For example, a user enters a
voice request for a web page into a telephone, which sends the request to
a proxy browser for the World Wide Web which in turn provides the request
to a web navigation application executing on an application server. The
web navigation application generates a text-based request based on the
voice request and retrieves a web page from the World Wide Web based on
the text-based request. The web navigation application uses a script or
an XML page to generate a file suitable for audio output from the
retrieved web page. The web navigation application then produces an audio
output file from the generated file, which it sends to the proxy browser
to provide audio output signals to the user over the telephony connection
to the user's telephone.