Microsoft talks up voice recognition

The next stop for artificial intelligence will be speech recognition software, according to Microsoft.

At this week's International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence the Redmond giant unveiled a free intelligent speech dictation application that will run on Windows CE.

Available in early September, the as yet unnamed application will translate spoken word into text. But the catch is that you will need to hook up wireless modems to the handheld and a desktop PC, so that the heavy duty processing can be carried out on the desktop.

The guts of an iPaq or similar CE device just aren't powerful enough to handle the task. The desktop will also have to host the speech engine, which will either be Office XP or Microsoft Speech API.

The intelligent software angle will also be woven into Microsoft's .Net initiative. A so-called 'notification platform', which seems similar to unified messaging, allows a user to receive information such as emails, phone calls and instant messages at a time, and on a platform, of their choice.

The software will know if a user is in a meeting and hold calls accordingly, or direct information to a PC, handheld or mobile phone. The software will be combined into Microsoft's HailStorm project, a key part of .Net.

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Is there a silver-tongued computer out there?  12 Oct 2001

Uncertain future for speech recognition

We all know that the keyboard is living on borrowed time. One day we'll interact with computers more naturally by talking - or yelling - at them like we do with people. The only question is when?  23 Aug 2001

Gadgets and gizmos: dictation machines

Digital dictation machines have revolutionised the market with their easy to use interfaces and greatly extended battery power. Here's a look at the best machines on offer.  08 May 2001

AllVoice in new patent appeal

Voice recognition software developer AllVoice has launched a fresh appeal against rival Dragon Systems in its wrangle over patent infringements.  13 Dec 2000

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