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To: David E. Taylor who wrote (43739)	7/7/2000 1:34:44 PM
From: Mang Cheng	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 45548

Voice recognition for ibm workpad: "Coming Soon: A PDA That Listens" "Speech recognition leaders aim to give PDAs a voice and ears." by Tom Spring, PCWorld.com July 5, 2000, 6:23 p.m. PT "Excuse me--are you talking to me or your PDA?" Coming soon from the technology world: another inanimate object to talk with. Two leaders in speech recognition, IBM and Belgian speech technology giant Lernout & Hauspie, have each built speech-enabled prototypes of handheld devices that could be commercially available as early as next year. Both recently showed off palm-size devices that perform speech-to-text transcriptions, have voice-controlled personal digital assistants, and can respond to questions with a computer-synthesized voice. IBM and L&H also plan to connect their devices to competing wireless networks. PDAs With Personalities The dream is that, someday, people will command their handheld devices with questions like "Is my flight to New York on time?" The device could go out onto a network, gather data, and give detailed information in a synthesized voice. "The stylus and telephone keypad are clumsy user interfaces," says Gaston Bastiaens, president of L&H. "The key is to make voice the interface to access any service or application." That need is painfully apparent with small handheld devices and cellular phones. Thanks to the exponential growth in computer processing power, coupled with advanced speech recognition technology, it has become feasible to develop Palm-size devices that can handle limited voice-to-text transcription and that can understand questions or commands. Conversely, the same advances allow companies like IBM and L&H to offer systems that read back information with ever-more-human inflection. Pocket HAL 9000? IBM has developed a hardware jacket that fits <>Palm devices by using a serial port. IBM showed the prototype jacket that works in tandem with its own line of WorkPad handheld computers. The jacket itself has a 133-MHz processor and extra flash memory for speech processing. The sleeve also has a microphone and a speaker and uses IBM's ViaVoice speech recognition technology. Using its translation application, you speak an English phrase into the device's microphone and a synthesized voice reads it back in your choice of five languages. Using voice commands, you can also navigate any WorkPad application and have text read back to you. The prototype stores 30 minutes of audio files in 4MB of flash memory. Then when you sync the handheld with your desktop PC, IBM's ViaVoice engine on your desktop automatically transcribes the audio clip and uploads the transcript to the handheld. However, IBM representatives say a beefier model could be built that would handle speech-to-text dictation on the device itself. "It really depends on what someone wants to build and how much a consumer is willing to spend on hardware," say Michael Buss, IBM Voice Evangelist. IBM says it isn't planning to sell the voice-recognition sleeve itself, but is working with several unnamed manufacturers to build the jackets and possibly cobrand the hardware. pcworld.com Mang