"People want to converse naturally with information," said W.S. In a world where we access the Internet through laptops, cell phones, PalmPilots, televisions, car dashboards and even microwave ovens, what is the one "interface" we bring to each device? It's partly because there is an even bigger hurry to hook up new devices to the Internet, including many that lack a keyboard or mouse. You may be wondering why there's such a hurry to make the Internet respond to human speech, when it seems to be doing just fine with mice. The sites would offer spoken menus that visitors could listen to and choose from, much as Web pages now offer textual and graphical hyperlinks that lead to other pages. Why don't you give those mystery novels a break, Leslie, and chill with some poetry?" But that's still in the planning stages.Ī consortium of technology companies (AT&T, Lucent Technologies, Motorola and IBM) announced in March that they are collaborating on a Web-coding language called VXML that will allow site developers to place voice markers in their pages to signal that sites can converse with visitors. The next step will be when the Web talks back.
In addition, IBM recently began selling a companion to its ViaVoice speech-recognition software that allows people to compose e-mail and dictate into Internet chat rooms using headsets with microphones. The surfing was choppy and the program often took me to the wrong site, but I was surprised it worked at all.Īt least three other companies – Philips Electronics, IBM and Dragon Systems – also have software prototypes that allow people to navigate the Web using simple oral commands. I used my voice recently to navigate the World Wide Web with a browser to be released in June by a Seattle company called Conversa. Bye for now."ĭon't you wish surfing the Web were that easy, so we could talk to our computers and they would know exactly what we mean? As unlikely as it may seem, several companies are bringing voice-activated Web browsers to market this year. Now e-mail my brother, will you? Tell him the Non Blondes CD is out. And while we're at it, let's see if 4 Non Blondes has a new CD. Now find me the latest mystery from Patricia Cornwell. Rennie said research teams from the two companies digitally processed hundreds of hours of speech recordings found in earlier-model Honda systems to create a natural-sounding text-to-speech system."Hello, is this the Internet? Take me to, please.
"We also worked with Honda on the process to be able to deliver a very natural voice in the car." "It goes significantly beyond what was done before in terms of being able to deliver an integrated speech experience in a car," Rennie said. Because the voice-recognition technology is integrated into the car's audio system, driving instructions can be heard over the speakers.
The vehicles will recognize more than 700 voice commands and more than 1.7 million street and city names.Īnd if a driver has the radio volume really loud, the system knows to turn it down so the driver can hear the directions.
The system enables drivers to use voice commands to ask for driving directions and then receive voice-guided turn-by-turn instructions, so they don't have to take their hands off the wheel, Rennie said.