Here's another very topical article:
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San Jose Mercury News, 11 Oct 1999
Voice-activated sites offer Web
access to new users
BY JON HEALEY
Mercury News Staff Writer
You can reach the Internet from just about anywhere, but you've got to have the
right tool -- a computer, say, or a cell phone with a built-in Web browser.
For many people, that's too much to ask. And that's why a small but growing
number of companies are developing ways to access their Web sites by voice,
using nothing more than an ordinary phone.
These voice-activated sites, most of which won't emerge until next year,
represent another step in the Internet's evolution from an arcane research tool to
an all-purpose resource as popular and accessible as the Yellow Pages. By substituting speech for computer programs,
the companies hope to draw more people to their corners of the Web -- including the unwired majority without home
computers.
``Having easy access to information is what we're looking for,' said analyst Elizabeth Herrell of Giga Information
Group, a market research firm. ``And this is a very easy way to get it.'
The key to these Web sites is speech recognition technology, which converts the spoken word into digital information
that computers understand. Once used mainly to transcribe dictation, speech-recognition tools are working their way
into mobile phones and telephone networks, enabling people to make calls and summon information without punching a
keypad.
Those tools have grown more sophisticated as computing power has increased, enabling them to recognize natural
speech instead of a small set of carefully enunciated commands. And the synthesized responses sound far more like
they're coming from humans, albeit unusually polite ones.
At least two companies -- Nuance Communications Inc. of Menlo Park and SpeechWorks International Inc. of Boston
-- are developing technology to convert Web sites into voice sites. Industry groups also are trying to develop a
standard way to create Web sites that will respond to voice commands.
Going a step further, both Nuance and SpeechWorks are making products for phone companies that would let callers
jump from one voice site to another, as if they were surfing the Web on their computers.
Nuance's approach would have users dial into a voice-activated Web browser, with an electronic assistant listening in
to answer questions and help navigate. As with a browser on a computer, users could create shortcuts to their favorite
voice-activated sites, store credit-card and shipping information and keep a list of contacts.
In a recent demonstration, Nuance Chief Executive Ronald Croen used the browser to connect to a customized
American Airlines Web site, where he told the computerized reservation system to book a flight to Cleveland and bill it
to the credit-card number he had previously stored. Next, he directed the browser to a voice-activated Hertz site,
which automatically detected his interest in a renting a car in Cleveland, and then went on to the Cleveland chamber of
commerce site for a weather forecast.
He accomplished all this through a single phone call, using an ordinary phone.
Of course, it's a relatively simple thing to book a flight and reserve a car today through a few phone calls. But many
people prefer to use the Internet because there's no time spent on hold and no ``phone tree' -- the often aggravating
series of automated menus that callers have to burrow through before speaking to a live body.
The voice-activated approach doesn't get rid of all the menus, but it can make them easier to navigate. Customers who
use the Telemaster service at online brokerage E*Trade Group, for example, can bypass the menus by learning a few
simple voice shortcuts -- ``get mutual fund quotes,' for example, or ``sell all of my Internet stocks and invest the
proceeds in precious metals.'
Use for blind
Voice-activated sites could provide easy Web access to a host of new users, including the blind or people who can't
use a computer keyboard. The initial users, though, are likely to be veteran Web surfers who want more ways to reach
the sites they've come to rely on.
A logical starting point would be Web sites that require a fair amount of input, such as a mapping service that provides
directions between any two points. The phone's keypad is a poor substitute for a full keyboard, especially when trying
to enter addresses.
Dana Goldberg, an Internet strategy consultant in Boston, is a frequent user of United Airlines' voice-activated site,
which is powered by SpeechWorks. The reason, she said, is ``it wastes much less of my time' than the regular United
information line.
She used the voice-activated line two weekends ago, calling from her cell phone at a Korean restaurant in Boston's
Chinatown. ``I just said, `I've got a friend coming in from Los Angeles, the plane's supposed to arrive at 9.' ' The
system automatically told her the exact time of arrival, terminal and gate.
Croen of Nuance said that more than 50 companies have created voice-enabled sites using his company's technology.
But the idea will really take off, he said, once phone companies add a voice-activated browser that can ferry users from
site to site in one call.
British Telecom, the dominant phone company in England, plans to try out the new browser, called Voyager, next year,
Croen said. There also will be trial runs in the United States, he said, but he declined to say which phone companies
would be using the technology.
Just as Internet service providers charge for access to the Web, the phone companies are likely to charge for
voice-browser service. One reason those companies like the idea, Croen said, is that it presents a new way to generate
revenue and customer loyalty at a time when per-minute charges are falling and competition is increasing.
Wider audience
Internet-based companies, meanwhile, are looking for ways to reach a larger audience and make their sites accessible
anywhere, anytime. They're already working hard on ways to deliver their sites to the tiny screen of a mobile phone, as
well as to television sets and anything else that can connect to the Internet.
Speech recognition adds another doorway, one that could be particularly valuable to people on the road, said Faith
Sedlin, director of messaging for Excite@Home of Redwood City. ``It opens up access to content and news services
they couldn't get in other ways,' she said.
The company's Excite Web site is using Nuance software to experiment with voice-activated address books. Users
load their electronic address books into their personalized Excite page, dial into the site, say the name of a contact, and
the number is dialed over the Internet.
Naturally, there are costs associated with that service, and it's not clear how much people might be willing to pay for it.
One big challenge, Sedlin said, is figuring out how to make a business out of any of the services that speech recognition
enables.
Nevertheless, the demand from companies for speech-recognition technologies is enormous, said Stuart Patterson,
president and chief executive of SpeechWorks.
For corporations, he said, voice-activated sites promise to reduce the load on their customer-service lines. And for
popular Web sites -- ``portals' like Excite and ``destinations' like MapQuest -- the main motive is to stand out from
the crowd.
``There's still somewhat of a, `I want to be there first,' ' he said. |
