Intel Investors - Speech Recognition discussed again as a Driver for Powerful CPUs/PCs.
Paul
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news.com
Talk time for PCs
By Stephanie Miles
Staff Writer, CNET NEWS.COM
August 12, 1998, 12:55 p.m. PT
The quest for the "killer" application that
could fully justify buying a powerful $2,000
Pentium II computer may be as plain as the
nose on your face, or rather, the mouth: voice
recognition software.
Voice recognition software allows users to
dictate, rather than type, documents, emails,
and basic commands. It also provides a
natural way for users can interact with their
computers.
Though it has been touted as the
epoch-making application the PC industry
has been looking for, by analysts and users
alike, it has yet to catch on in large numbers.
Intel and PC vendors have high hopes as
there have been few compelling mainstream
productivity applications that might justify the
purchase of a PC with the most powerful
Pentium II processors.
To be sure, there are still a number of
technical and logistical obstacles that need
to be overcome before speech-recognition
as a desktop application takes off.
The PC industry's move toward integrating
more functions--like graphics and
sound--onto a single chip in the interest of
cutting costs has resulted in many
computers, even high-end systems, with
sound cards incapable of inputting voice
commands, said William Meisel president of
TMA Associates of Tarzana, California.
"Part of the difficulty with speech recognition
right now is that not all the sound cards
support speech input," Meisel said.
"Sometimes even the higher-end PCs use
integrated chips, and integrated chips don't
have good sound."
Additionally, convenient headset
microphones that allow users to switch from
telephone to dictation modes are still too
expensive. "The other bottleneck is the
microphone itself. The ones shipping with
PCs are good quality, but not necessarily
easy to use," Meisel noted.
With 450-MHz Pentium II processor systems
arriving in stores this summer, and 500-MHz
systems not far behind, Intel and
profit-squeezed PC vendors need to
convince corporate and individual customers
why they shouldn't just buy a $799 computer
with a processor from Cyrix or IDT or a
low-end chip from Intel.
"There's always a constant struggle to make
sure that there's demand for the processing
power that's being put out," said Danny Lam,
director of Fisher-Holstein, and a
speech-recognition analyst. "You've got to
find a way to consume it."
The system requirements from suites like
IBM's ViaVoice, Lernout & Hauspie's Voice
Xpress, and Dragon Systems Naturally
Speaking are robust enough to make Intel
and PC vendors excited about the prospects
of selling more of the fast, pricey systems.
For this kind of software, a lowly 166-MHz
processor doesn't cut it. To run these
applications with any consistency or
accuracy, the system should have at least a
Pentium II 300-MHz processor, and a
minimum of 96MB of memory, according to
Lam.
"The (voice recognition) performance goes
up as you add memory and processor
speed," noted Lam. "It eats CPU clock
cycles and memory. It consumes the power
that they're putting out. Consumers are
asking, why do you need more than a
Pentium MMX, and we found a reason why."
Microsoft has suggested that speech
recognition will be a large part of future
operating systems, which will be a huge push
for the technology, Meisel said. "Microsoft
has come out pretty strongly about the
importance of speech," said Meisel.
"[They've said] that they're going to put
speech into the operating system, and
they've put a significant research effort into
natural language recognition."
Even before Microsoft incorporates speech
into their operating system and other
technical wrinkles are ironed out, in a
corporate environment, speech recognition
applications already have a real value to
disabled employees, especially those with
repetitive stress disorder. Additionally, many
companies are finding adding speech
recognition for phone systems can be a huge
money saver.
"Seventy percent of computers sold go to
businesses," noted Lam. "For a business
user, speech recognition is a performance
tool, as the accuracy rate gets to be around
94 percent. We find that for the average
person, it beats typing."
Also, for users who can't type at all, speech
recognition applications allow employees to
operate computers effectively. "I'm working
now, and I was not working before," said
Lewis Wallace, a Dragon user who suffers
from carpal-tunnel syndrome. Wallace says
that he improves his efficiency by setting up
voice "macros," which can type a series of
text such as HTML coding with a single word.
Despite the positive impact voice
recognition has had on his professional life,
Wallace pointed out an obstacle to the
software that may not be overcome even with
technical improvements: eavesdropping
co-workers.
"Frankly, my biggest problem is shyness. I
felt somewhat embarrassed. Every word you
'write,' all the work, all the email, can be
heard," he said. "I used to work in a large
room, with lots of people. There was a little
performance anxiety that I never
expected...but I'm in an office by myself now."
Related news stories
Voice software works with Word April 29, 1998
Voice recognition growing flexible April 9, 1998
Speech software is encyclopedic March 25, 1998
Speech recognition takes off February 3, 1998
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