If the act of whipping out your cell phone to checkin on Foursquare has gotten to be too much of a hassle, Vlingo has you covered.  The voice-triggered app for Android now allows complete voice-based control over Foursquare, including checkins, shout-outs and other socially-related voice-commands.

Using just your voice, the app allows you to update your location status on Foursquare by saying something like “check into Starbucks,” or locate your friends with commands like “where are my friends?” and “who’s nearby?”  In addition, the app also lets users update their status on Facebook, Twitter and/or Foursquare at the same time by saying “social update” and saying the message.  Pretty cool.

Available only for Android devices sporting 2.0 or higher at the moment, Vlingo plans to add the functionality to its other apps in the near future.  In addition to the new social functionality, Vlingo still offers users the ability to do a number of other voice-based tasks including sending text and email messages, searching the web, navigating Google maps and more.

NBC Universal Digital Studio has teamed with human-powered answering service ChaCha for a unique mobile engagement initiative for NBC’s new “FCU: Fact Checker’s Unit” series.

The series, based on a short film of the same name, follows two overzealous fact checkers employed to confirm or disprove various statements made in articles scheduled to be published by a magazine.  Viewers and fans can participate by joining the show’s mobile alerts and “Check Your Own Facts” by texting ChaCha on the show’s site and engage more deeply with the content by experiencing a live feed of fact checking questions.

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Yet another major acquisition in the mobile space has transpired.

Google has scooped up mobile gaming startup SocialDeck in a move that furthers the search engine giant’s growing involvement in social media through strategic purchases and acquisitions.

With the ultimate goal of challenging social networking juggernaut Facebook, Google reportedly shelled out big bucks of the buy, although no financial terms have yet been made public.

As reported by the Wall Street Journal, the Canadian start-up has launched several games titles for Facebook, as well as Apple’s iPhone and Research In Motion Ltd.’s BlackBerry devices.

“SocialDeck’s games platform technology enables simultaneous game play across multiple mobile devices and social networks,” the WSJ explains.

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I’ve long wondered when someone would start leveraging existing LBS apps as a platform to add layers of functionality on top of, and it looks like a team at Jumpfox — a mobile app development firm — has done just that.

They’ve created a new startup and mobile app called “TappLocal,” which aims to emulate the rewards and location-based offers being integrated in existing LBS apps like Foursquare and Yelp, but do so independently to create a so-called “location-based ad-network” strictly for highly relevant LBS offers.  The tech is then offered up to partner LBS apps for integration.

Here’s how it works: TappLocal uses their backend to create a geofence around certain partner venues.  When a user crosses that boundary and happens to be using one of the partner apps, a deal indicator will pop-up in real-time.  Clicking this area opens a larger area explaining exactly what the deal is.  Simply click one more time to verify you wish to use the deal, show it to the store that it’s valid at, and the offer is validated and redeemed on-the-spot.

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Automated checkin apps are becoming increasingly popular as LBS continues to pick up steam.  People want to make sure they checkin to venues they frequent, but it’s not always handy to whip out your cell phone, open an app and checkin — especially when you sport numerous apps at the same time.

Luckily, app developers were quick to solve the problem by taking advantage of background processing on the iPhone and Android devices.  Two new apps to fit that description are “Checkmate” and “Future Checkin,” both of which are iPhone apps primarily geared towards automated Foursquare checkins.

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AT&T yesterday announced a partnership with SCVNGR to offer in-store rewards and discounts for completing mini-challenges in select AT&T stores across the Midwest.

SCVNGR is a social game that involves checking into locations and doing challenges, while earning points and unlocking rewards in the process.  Through its partnership with AT&T, customers can complete challenges that include simply checking in to an AT&T store, completing various social checkins, snapping a photo of the new Samsung Captivate, sharing ringtones and more to amass points that can be turned into rewards on the spot.

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During the lead-up to Facebook’s announcement of their new check-in/location functionality, many wondered what effect it would have on other LBS startups that occupy the same market — namely Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp and a host of others.

That question was answered today as Facebook announced their new API to go along with its “places” functionality.  Reps from Foursquare and Gowalla even took the stage during the announcement to talk about how they plan to leverage the new API to their advantage.  In short, Facebook made it clear that they intend to play nice with other LBS apps.

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