Tuesday, July 15, 2003
Speech Recognition On Track
Posted by Andy Sjostrom in "NEWS" @ 06:40 AM
We're slowly seeing more and more pieces of the speech recognition puzzle falling into place. Last year I wrote twice about Microsoft's SALT (Speech Application Language Tags) specification in the posts "Say Hi! to your Pocket PC" and Speech enabled Pocket Internet Explorer next year?. I recommend re-visiting them before reading on!
The Computerworld article "Microsoft releases Speech Server beta" says "Microsoft on Wednesday moved toward the integration of call centers and the Web with the release of the first public beta of its Microsoft Speech Server and a new beta version of its Speech Application Software Development Kit (SDK). ... Companies that need call centers can cut costs by automating them on the server, said Xuedong Huang, general manager for Microsoft speech technologies. Among other things, the server can interpret callers' requests and provide recorded or synthesized responses. Developers also can integrate the voice-based services with Web-based applications that can continue to run on a Web server as they do now. For example, a caller could ask for a stock quote verbally and have it displayed on a handheld device, he said."
Speech recognition is a processor, memory and storage intensive task. It will take quite some time before mobile devices are up to the task with any precision. Meanwhile and as connectivity increases, we will see more mobile devices connect to speech recognition servers that can process sound and return information in the form of text or application commands.
With regards to the alternative specification, VoiceXML, I wrote in one of my previous posts: "I generally feel Microsoft should play with the others in the W3C. Hopefully, they will merge over time, or at least define integration mechanisms". I am glad that the Computerworld article concludes: "Both Plakias and Microsoft's Huang look to the two specifications eventually merging under the W3C. Plakias said that could happen as soon as the end of 2004. Huang was less specific. "We want to find a way to converge with Voice XML, but how we're going to do that, I don't know," Huang said."
Very cool!
The Computerworld article "Microsoft releases Speech Server beta" says "Microsoft on Wednesday moved toward the integration of call centers and the Web with the release of the first public beta of its Microsoft Speech Server and a new beta version of its Speech Application Software Development Kit (SDK). ... Companies that need call centers can cut costs by automating them on the server, said Xuedong Huang, general manager for Microsoft speech technologies. Among other things, the server can interpret callers' requests and provide recorded or synthesized responses. Developers also can integrate the voice-based services with Web-based applications that can continue to run on a Web server as they do now. For example, a caller could ask for a stock quote verbally and have it displayed on a handheld device, he said."
Speech recognition is a processor, memory and storage intensive task. It will take quite some time before mobile devices are up to the task with any precision. Meanwhile and as connectivity increases, we will see more mobile devices connect to speech recognition servers that can process sound and return information in the form of text or application commands.
With regards to the alternative specification, VoiceXML, I wrote in one of my previous posts: "I generally feel Microsoft should play with the others in the W3C. Hopefully, they will merge over time, or at least define integration mechanisms". I am glad that the Computerworld article concludes: "Both Plakias and Microsoft's Huang look to the two specifications eventually merging under the W3C. Plakias said that could happen as soon as the end of 2004. Huang was less specific. "We want to find a way to converge with Voice XML, but how we're going to do that, I don't know," Huang said."
Very cool!
