<p>In this <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Support_vector_machine#Software" rel="noreferrer">Wikipedia article about SVM</a> there are a number of links to different implementations of MATLAB toolboxes for Support Vector Machines. Could anyone suggest which of these is best in terms of speed, ease of use, etc.?</p>

I've used
libSVM
. It is pretty fast and easy, and provides some useful tools, too. There are some examples of it in use
here
. The other nice thing is that there are implementations in C++ and Java, too, so if you find yourself needing to develop outside of Matlab (to turn a prototype into something speedy, for example), you will have a familiar interface to work with.