Speech Reconnaissance:
Making the Case for Speech

Will 1999 finally be the year of speech recognition? Or will Y2K issues distract the computer world’s attention to the point where this remarkable technology will remain on the back burner for another year? Many people in the industry are asking that question now. While the "Millennium bug" issue has been grabbing recent scare headlines, and may even temporarily slow down the advance of speech, there are more and more indications that the technology is here for the long haul. Our lead article in this issue, "The Business Case for Speech Recognition in the Call Center," shows how compelling the case for speech is becoming in mainstream customer service call centers. Research at the Gartner Group indicates that by 2003, 30% of new IVR ports will feature speech recognition. We also feature an article on how to choose a call center partner, which we thought would be of interest to speech professionals seeking to find how their technology can be used in a call center environment. This issue also explores conversational agents. These "talking heads" can serve as guides, helpers and even security guards in many applications. In "Conversational Agents Let Users Treat Computers as People," James Larson examines the most recent advances in this field. We also continue our look at advanced interfaces with an article on handwriting recognition, "Heads Up: Handwriting Recognition and the Human-Computer Interface," by John Giudice and Brian Mottershead. Finally, we offer two articles dealing with assistive technology. "Speech: A Declaration of Independence for People with Disabilities" by Doug Bowes gives profiles of three people benefiting from speech recognition software, and in "Interactive Technology Enhances Speech Therapy" we see how speech recognition is being used by stroke patients and others to learn to overcome speech problems.