NUAN in WirelessWeek:
By Brad Smith
With all the talk about the wireless Internet these days, a question arises: Will voice have a voice in the future?
The short answer: As voice-recognition technology advances, human speech is going to play a bigger role in surfing the Webð even if the goal is data retrieval rather than conversation.
Voice recognition has been around for years, but many people are acquainted only with the quality displayed by "Igor," the unflattering name given to the computerized voice in early applications. That's changing with the more dulcet tones and accents available in newer software.
But voice recognition is just part of the game now being played by many of the world's largest companies, as well as a host of start-ups aiming to lend a voice to the wireless Internet. Among those involved in the new arena are Microsoft Corp., Motorola, Lucent, IBM and Oracle. Others with a more focused approach include Phone.com Inc., Nuance Communications Inc., Tellme Networks Inc., General Magic Inc., Wildfire Communications Inc., Webley Inc., InTouch Systems Inc., AirTrac Inc., Audiopoint Inc., SpeechWorks International Inc. and Talk2 Technology Inc. As interest mounts, there undoubtedly will be more.
Analyst Mark Lowenstein of the Yankee Group in Boston says there will be a transition in the wireless industry over the next few years to using the voice in new ways. These include voice-activated dialing and personal assistant services.
"What's very exciting about some of this is the use of the Web to bridge the voice and data world and the landline and wireless world," Lowenstein says. This means the Internet can be used to set up a host of enabling functions for mobile devices.
Dana Thorat, an analyst with International Data Corp. in Framingham, Mass., says there is a large consumer audience willing to buy services that tie voice and data together. She says using voice commands to manage e-mail can be attractive to non-PC users, mobile professionals and the visually impaired.
Using the voice to access the Web can be especially beneficial ðand safe ðwhile driving a vehicle. That's one of the reasons cited by General Motors when it announced it would build a voice-user interface into its OnStar system. GM will use the General Magic MagicTalk product. The car manufacturer also agreed to invest about $15 million in General Magic.
Speeding Up Voice And Mobile Portals
The speech recognition engine behind General Magic comes from Nuance, which has built verification and recognition software deployed by more than 70 companies in 12 languages. Nuance recently formed its Voice Web Portal Program with a dozen other companies to help speed the development of voice and mobile portals.
Nuance plans to start shipping its voice browser product, called Voyager, later this year. It is intended to function similarly to browsers on a desktop PC, with bookmarks, profiles, links and navigation all accessed through voice.
Kathy Frostad, the company's telecom marketing director, says Voyager will be offered to Web portals that want to offer voice access. The initial release of the software will enable closed services only available on a portal site, but coming releases will allow access to the broader Internet. The content doesn't have to be written for voice since other companies are offering text-to-speech conversion software.
Voice portals can provide such things as e-mail, news, weather and sports, jokes, restaurant listings, address books, movies and concerts, calendars and voice e-commerce, Frostad says. A wireless subscriber could use a voice portal to make or change airplane reservations, or buy a book from a Web site.
U-Access' Applications
An example of a voice Web portal is U-Access Inc., one of the members of the Voice Web Portal Program. U-Access is a free shopping service that organizes Web deals and promotions and provides it to consumers for free, placing the deals into categories that can be accessed by voice. Users sign up for the services they want and the advertisements are sent via voice mail. If a consumer responds "connect me" he or she is connected live with an advertiser's operator. U-Access has more than 50 companies supplying deals, including Blockbuster, EarthLink, GEICO Insurance, Pizza Hut and Spiegel.
Another member of the portal program is Star*Free Network Inc., which initially is offering voice access to news and sports headlines. Star*Free, which has signed up Bell Atlantic Mobile and AllTel Cellular, plans to offer customized information that subscribers can personalize. The service is free to users because audio ads are built into the content.
Using Voice For E-commerce
Parigon Communications Inc., which launched its SimplySay text-to-speech e-mail service in beta last fall, is another voice portal that is expanding its offerings to include the ability to check stock prices and conduct e-commerce with only speech.
Some analysts say what Nuance is doing with its voice portal strategy will help create a revolution in voice e-commerce. Analyst Mark Plakias of The Kelsey Group says voice will "fuse" the dot-com world with the ubiquity of phones and wireless handsets. He likens the advent of voice portals to the kind of technological enabler of the toll-free 800 numbers in the 1960s.
Banding Together For Standards
Another technological enabler in the growth of voice portals is the VoiceXML (for Voice eXtensible Markup Language) Forum, created last March by AT&T, Lucent and Motorola. Dozens of other companies have signed up to support the language specification as a de facto standard for speech recognition, text-to-speech or recorded audio. The standard is designed to allow Web sites to add script for interactive phone access.
The biggest contribution that VoiceXML will have for voice portals is that it allows Web sites to voice-enable their content without supporting speech-recognition engines, according to William Meisel, president of the consulting and publishing company TMA Associates of Tarzana, Calif.
"VoiceXML could go far in making telephony systems more effective, even when they are not attached to the Internet," Meisel says. "This standard will take a while to mature, but it bears watching."
800-pound Gorillas Seek Voice
Microsoft entered the voice business last fall when it acquired Entropic Inc., a software developer for speech recognition. Microsoft made the purchase to gain Entropic's expertise in speech application programming and software toolkits, specifically aimed at providing telephony access to the Web.
Soon after, wireless Internet pioneer Phone.com made its own voice purchase, paying $285 million for @Motion Inc., which has been developing a voice portal to the Internet similar to what Phone.com has done for data. Phone.com is one of the prime movers behind the Wireless Application Protocol for wireless access to the Net. @Motion also uses Nuance's speech recognition and text-to-speech from Fonix.
Phone.com says it wants to use @Motion's expertise to voice-enable Phone.com's MyPhone mobile portal and its UP.Link server platform. @Motion also can add voice access to personal assistant and unified messaging services through MyPhone.
Lucent recently announced an Internet message management service offering e-mail text-to-voice conversion as well as a voice browser that allows users to "surf" the Net with spoken commands.
Connie Blackburn, marketing director in Lucent's Converged Media Applications group, says both the Internet Message Management and voice browser are aimed at a convergence of telephony-centric and IP-centric networks that allows users to manage messaging, information and e-commerce with multiple devices wherever they are.
The e-mail manager, which will begin beta testing in the second quarter, provides e-mail notification and access from a wireless phone. With filters and preference settings, users can be notified of appointments from a calendar, when e-mails arrive and can route e-mails to a fax machine or printer. With filters it can store personal e-mails until the end of the day.
With Lucent's voice browser, expected to be available in the second quarter through some North American providers, users can use voice commands to pull information off a Web site, Blackburn says. This can include stock quotes, movie listings, traffic reports, airline fares and even e-commerce sites.
When Oracle Corp. announced recently it was setting up a new subsidiary called OracleMobile.com to provide portal access to Internet content, new CEO Denise Lahey said the company also wants to voice-enable the access. OracleMobile.com will use the company's Portal-to-Go software to translate Web content for display on any device, but Lahey says voice access will be a key part of the strategy later this year.
Upstarts Weigh In
Another voice portal entrant is AirTrac Inc., a Chicago-based company that recently started selling its "Wireless Web by Voice" service, part of its AirTrac EveryWhere Office. AirTrac intends to sell the service through wireless and wireline carriers and other service providers, allowing subscribers to use voice commands to navigate content on the Web by calling into AirTrac's Internet Voice Portal server.
At the end of February, Audiopoint Inc. and SpeechWorks International Inc. began offering a voice portal for AT&T Wireless Services subscribers localized for the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. The two companies say they'll roll the service out nationwide on a market-by-market basis. Audiopoint provides the free interactive voice connection to the Web, while SpeechWorks handles the speech recognition. Initial services include stock quotes, weather, sports scores and traffic updates, but Audiopoint intends to add movie listings, restaurants, airline schedules and customized information.
Year-old Tellme Networks Inc., founded by former Netscape technology guru Mike McCue, also is getting ready to launch into the voice portal space. Tellme rounded up $47 million in venture capital financing from Benchmark Capital and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers in December. It hasn't disclosed specifics, but intends to roll out basic services in the first half of this year that can be accessed through any carrier.
From all the recent activity in the voice portal marketplace it is obvious that consumers will have a number of choices in the months ahead. The challenge will be whether the technology itself meets the expectations of the users. If it does, voice will be heard on the Internet.
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