Task.fm is a notification service that - impressively - talks the same language as you and converts common phrases into reminders.

Considering the site design and branding, as well as the service itself this is an app designed for industrious young executives busy with Blackberries andd cafe lattes.

The engine that translates your phrasing into a reminder is impressive - recognising even the most vague “A-week-from-yesterday-at-the-morrow” type phrases.

I have a deep bond with my phone’s calendar application. It’s a safe relationship. Can this flashy tart break my monogamy?

At the outset, it looks like Task.fm (not to be confused with www.task.com: “Largest provider of point-of-sale merchandise in North America’) is doing everything right. They’ve identified a problem: computers don’t speak like us. And they’ve found a market: people that need to be reminded about stuff. Add some very clever back-end coding and voila! You’ve created a slick little app that sets out to do one thing and do it well.

Once you’ve registered wwith task.fm you are presented with a simple - dare I say “twitteresque” - text field allowing you to set a SMS, phone call (at a small cost) or an email reminder by typing in the same way as you would speak to a person. For example, task.fm correctly translated the phrases: “Remind me in five minutes time”, “Remind me in two weeks from Friday at midday” and “remind me four days from tomorrow at 3 in the afternoon”. A simple exterior belies a sophisticated engine. Impressive stuff.

As I say, you can’t really fault task.fm for what it does, largely becuase it does it very well. My only problem with the service is that the way that I speak to people is not the way that I speak with my computer. I am proudly bilingual. My computer has taught me very well that dates are picked by clicking a square on a calendar and times are selected from a drop-down box. Is my computer allowing me the creative expression to talk to it in the same manner as I would Hal from A Space Odyssey 2001? Well, No. However, depsite this communication hurdle, we still have a functional and trusted relationship with one another. Task.fm has a formidable task to try and convert calendar users into semantic speakers.

While this app would be beautiful in a talk-to-text application where you could dictate your reminder through a phone or microphone, I’m not sure that I believe that there are enough people out there that would rather ‘talk’ to their computer than to select dates and times from traditional means to see task.fm emerge an overnight success. Because peeople aren’t tied to their computers, I would also love to know whether task.fm are developing a mobile application to allow busy and important executives to set reminders from on the road.

Task.fm is currently in public beta. The business model is supported by users purchasing call and sms credits.

If you and your computer are ready to move to the next level in your relationship and really communicate with one another - and you need to be reminded of your marriage counselling session with your wife (she just doesn’t understand what we’ve got, my darling Macbook), then task.fm may be for you.