Salty Water for Surfers: Speech Enabled Browsers
October 12, 2007Microsoft, in conjunction with partners, is catching up with science fiction of the 20th century. We may not be traveling though the stars yet but the days of conversing with the computer are here. With the new release of SALT (Speech Application Language Tags), Internet users will soon have the ability of hands free surfing. "Imagine being able to say 'look for an apartment near Microsoft,' 'send flowers to my mom,' or, if an urgent call comes in, 'page me,'" said Microsoft VP Kai-Fu Lee. "This is about speech-enabling the Web and taking speech (recognition) into the mainstream."
The major market impact will undoubtedly be the mobile industry, imagine having a conversation with your phone as it reads you today’s latest news. SALT will empower the internet to interact with surfers like never before. Text boxes on web pages will be able to Listen to its users and Prompt them with responses. The days of painfully cycling though letters on a mobile phone or using a pen to tap out words on a miniature keyboard are quickly becoming numbered as users start chatting with their mobile devices.
SALT will not be limited to the internet nor to mobile devices; it will be released for use in all applications, desktop and mobile. Many desktop users have experienced the benefit of using voice powered word processing applications, but SALT will bring voice to all aspects of computer use, from file searching to performing common maintenance. As processing speeds increase and speech recognition software gets smarter, the keyboard may become a tool of the past.
Currently, a few companies are running demo versions of the new SALT enabled browsers trying to work out the last few kinks. Soon, SALT enabled tools will be released, giving mobile users an unprecedented freedom.
The major market impact will undoubtedly be the mobile industry, imagine having a conversation with your phone as it reads you today’s latest news. SALT will empower the internet to interact with surfers like never before. Text boxes on web pages will be able to Listen to its users and Prompt them with responses. The days of painfully cycling though letters on a mobile phone or using a pen to tap out words on a miniature keyboard are quickly becoming numbered as users start chatting with their mobile devices.
SALT will not be limited to the internet nor to mobile devices; it will be released for use in all applications, desktop and mobile. Many desktop users have experienced the benefit of using voice powered word processing applications, but SALT will bring voice to all aspects of computer use, from file searching to performing common maintenance. As processing speeds increase and speech recognition software gets smarter, the keyboard may become a tool of the past.
Currently, a few companies are running demo versions of the new SALT enabled browsers trying to work out the last few kinks. Soon, SALT enabled tools will be released, giving mobile users an unprecedented freedom.
