July / August 2000

Magazine Features

Are Vendors Asking Speech To Do Too Much?

Have vendors asked too much of speech recognition in the non-telephony world?

Continuous Dictation

In a changing field, speech recognition dictation continues to be altered in radical ways. The purchase of Dragon and Dictaphone by L&H made a small world even smaller. There were previously four players in the world of large vocabulary speech recognition. Now there are three.

Good Vibrations

There may be no greater enemy to speech recognition than noise. It either directly or indirectly causes most speech recognition errors. Errors brought on by noise can be the most persistent and difficult for the recognizer to eliminate. While most dictation software can eventually learn the idiosyncrasies of a particular speaker and learn to produce the right word, errors caused by noise are often too irregular to be countered and can so distort the final response as to render it beyond the understanding of the most sympathetic "best guess."

Industry Leader Focus

Editor's Note: This Industry Leader Focus article is part of an ongoing series of stories in which speech recognition industry leaders present their views about the state of the industry and what lies ahead.

Is Your System Talking at Callers or Communicating with Them?

The difference between what we say and what others hear has been a deterrent to effective communications since time began, even face-to-face.

Speech interfaces that Require Less Human Memory

Point. Click. Point. Click. Point. Double-click. Speech is the most natural way to communicate, but PC applications are easiest to use by mouse and keyboard. This is not because of technology limitations, but by design.

Speech Reconnaissance

Nowadays, everywhere you look you find some form of speech recognition technology being used. There is no question that your hard work and your belief in speech recognition technology are shaping the way we communicate. As speech recognition technology continues to move toward everyday use and acceptance, it becomes even more incumbent on each of us to work together to ensure the success of our products and industry and to deliver on our promise to change worldwide communications.

The Third Wave: Speech in Consumer Electronics

The speech recognition market has been projected to be on the verge of explosion for over a quarter of a century, but in reality it is only during the past few years that substantive growth and success has occurred.

VoiceXML: A Developer's View

Sit in on a discussion of speech recognition topics these days, and chances are the conversation will soon turn to VoiceXML and its expected impact on the industry.

Forward Thinking

What Is New at IBM Voice Systems?

Approximately one year ago, IBM Voice Systems assumed a new identity. It became part of Application & Integration middleware in the Software Solutions division of IBM. This move was a clear indication that IBM viewed speech technologies, in particular speech recognition, as viable for mainstream application.