« September 2005 | Main | November 2005 »
October 27, 2005
Microsoft lifts veil on future innovations
Creating these opportunities, new devices and functions can require a tremendous amount of research. Sometimes the results of that research aren't really visible but simply help existing technology run better, smoother or more quickly.
At other times, the hard work produces entirely new capabilities. For instance, we expect the next two decades of Windows to bring fast and easy voice recognition, handwriting recognition as a standard reliable feature on any computer, and unbelievable 3D and multidimensional graphics at a very low cost.
Posted by Michelle at 06:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 26, 2005
Speak and the computer listens
Sitting at his laptop at Toronto's Bloorview MacMillan Children's Centre, a rehabilitation hospital, Adam recently demonstrated SpeakQ, believed to be the first speech-recognition software designed for students with learning disabilities.
...SpeakQ, developed at Bloorview MacMillan with funding from the U.S. Department of Education, is the latest technology to help students who have learning disabilities. It combines speech recognition and word prediction in a single product.
Posted by Michelle at 12:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 25, 2005
BBN Technologies Announces Latest Speech-to-Text Software
BBN Technologies, an advanced technology and research and development firm, announced today the availability of AVOKE STX 2.0 speech-to-text software, which improves the relevance of multimedia search results by transforming audio into searchable text with unprecedented accuracy. Applications include enterprise search, business and government intelligence, consumer search, audio mining, video search, broadcast monitoring, and multimedia asset management.
Posted by Michelle at 07:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
NEC Develops Speech-to-Speech Translation Software for Mobile Phones
NEC Corporation today announced that it has succeeded in the development of Japanese-English/English-Japanese, automatic speech translation software for single-chip multi-core processors for small devices such as mobile phones, capable of operation at high speeds with low power consumption.
Posted by Michelle at 07:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Futurists Pick Top Tech Trends
Speech-recognition technology will be instrumental in enabling new mobile services, said Ronald Gruia, author of the blog Technology Futurist and emerging communications program leader at consulting firm Frost & Sullivan. In recent years, speech software developers, in particular Nuance Communications, which until recently went by the name ScanSoft (SSFT), have gotten much better at what they do. Gruia believes it's only a matter of time before speech-enabled mobile apps for tasks like composing e-mail while driving can be commonplace.
Posted by Michelle at 07:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Registration Open for Nation's First University Course on Medical Transcription Voice Recognition Editing
The Community College Workforce Alliance (CCWA) in Richmond VA, opened enrollment today for a medical transcription training course aimed at graduating students who are prepared to edit preliminary medical reports generated through voice recognition.
Posted by Michelle at 07:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 21, 2005
Right on Track: NaturalPoint scores big with a product that puts game players in the middle of the action
Formerly known as Eye Control Technologies, the firm was founded to make hands-free control devices for handicapped computer users. Its flagship product, known as SmartNAV, allowed users with limited use of their limbs to control a computer cursor by moving their head rather than manipulating a hand-held mouse. Commands can be executed in a variety of ways, from foot pedals to voice recognition to dwell clicking, which triggers an action after the cursor rests on a button for a second or two.
The inspiration for TrackIR came from a man with Lou Gehrig's disease who used his SmartNAV unit to run a flight simulator program and discovered the head-motion control vastly enhanced his field of view.
"He sent us an e-mail that said, 'Hey, did you guys know about this?' We said, 'No, but thank you,' and within six months we had developed this product,” recalled Jim Richardson, the company's president and chief technology officer.
Posted by Michelle at 12:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
One Voice Announces Availability of Its Media Center Communicator with ABS Computer Technologies
Imagine walking into your family room and using your voice to tell your Media Center to play jazz music or play your favorite artist or album, play a photo slideshow, watch and record live TV, read and send E-mail, call to order a pizza or video chat or Instant Message with a friend. Media Center Communicator delivers on this vision today! For more information, please visit http://www.onev.com/mcc or for an online demonstration, go to http://www.onev.com/videos/mccoverview.wmv.
Posted by Michelle at 12:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Breaking Down Language Barriers
A good overview of the future of voice translation:
Speech-to-text and speech-to-speech translations present additional technical hurdles, because voice recognition must be added. Current voice recognition software has trouble getting even clearly spoken words correct. Just consider voice-activated customer calling menus. Nonstandard accents and background noise bring their accuracy down even further.But Levin says the first systems, developed for "dirty travel survival," like using the cell phone to give cab drivers directions in Chinese, will be ready within two years. Levin is currently working on voice-to-text translations that will allow tourists to speak a question into their cell phones. Translated Chinese text will then appear on the cell screen for another person to read. True speech-to-speech translation, albeit with limited vocabulary, will be ready by the end of the decade.
Posted by Michelle at 12:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 20, 2005
A computer at astronauts' command
...Instead, a voice-operated computer named Clarissa has been developed to help the astronauts with their work.
The system was created to give astronauts a hands-free helper, says Beth Ann Hockey, project lead of the NASA Ames Research Team. Clarissa reads aloud instructions to procedures, so that astronauts can give full attention to the tasks at hand. The system had a successful test in June, during a mission to the International Space Station.
Clarissa is a far cry from the phone banking or airline flight information systems that consumers are familiar with. Those systems are directive, leading users through a set of questions for which there are limited answers, such as an account number or the word "yes." In contrast, Clarissa is responsive, constantly at-the-ready and listening for relevant commands.
Posted by Michelle at 01:07 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
ScanSoft renamed Nuance Communications in brand play
The Peabody, Mass.-based company will continue to use the ScanSoft name for its imaging products. The company started as an imaging technology business that was part of Xerox Corp. ScanSoft was spun out in 1999 and now also sells speech recognition software and systems.
Posted by Michelle at 12:55 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Making Webcasts accessible to the deaf
Unlike most of his deaf peers, Kanevsky has the skills and opportunity to do something about the problem. A Russian immigrant who became deaf at age 1, Kanevsky has spent much of his career as a mathematician inventing speech-related technologies.
Kanevsky, who holds 78 patents and has the title of master inventor at IBM, today is part of a team researching ways to make captioning easier, cheaper and faster by automating the process using voice recognition software.
Posted by Michelle at 12:53 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 04, 2005
Nokia 888 communicator concept phone
Now, you’re not going to see this in stores any time soon. But if you’d like to get an idea of what Nokia thinks the future of communications will look like, take a look at the Nokia 888 communicator, a concept design that recently won Nokia’s Benelux design contest. The bracelet-like 888 is envisioned to use a liquid battery, feature speech recognition, a flexible touch screen, and a touch sensitive body cover.
Posted by Michelle at 05:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Speech-Recognition Technology Advances
Speech-recognition technology has been around since the 1960s, when computer scientists were trying to mimic the complexities of human speech. Now, the technology has become an everyday feature as people talk to computers in the office, cars and more.
Posted by Michelle at 05:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack