23 February 2005:
SpeechTEK conference larger than ever. The conference has grown to two versions, East and West coasts, with more exhibtors and floor space than seen in prior years, in
contrast to many recent trade shows which have had nearly demoralizing
attendance. Considerable exhibitor attention is being paid to
voice dialog design with an impressive demo from SpeechWorks.
Other high spots at these conferences are the exceptionally realistic text-to-speech
engines Rhetorical rVoice
and Elan Sayso. Intel is quiet about its effort to place DSP processing chips on PC
motherboards to enable inexpensive processing for far field (no
user worn headset) microphones. Click "here
for the SpeehTEK site" .
26 Mar 2002:
Scansoft Announces MediaIndexerT tool to search audio and video
archives. This software makes it possible for the user
to search for and replay specific words or phrases within audio
and video recordings, a process that can also be conducted over
the Internet. The MediaIndexerT significantly expedites audio
searches, which are highly time consuming using the traditional
retrieval methods that require a human to listen to extended portions
of recordings to locate desired content. Click "here
for full ScanSoft press release" .
12 December
2001: ScanSoft acquires L&H speech assets. The acquisition
of speech technology assets of Lernout and Hauspie was finalized
today. These assets include such products as Dragon NaturallySpeaking,
MediaIndexer, RealSpeak, and developer SDK's for handheld and
embedded devices. Some of the research and development staff will
also be retained. Talks with management reveal a strong desire
to continue to improve and develop the L&H line in order to
round out ScanSoft's other media products. Click "here
for full ScanSoft press release" .
30 June 2001:
IBM announces array of speech tools for Linux. At PC Expo,
Scott Handy, DIrector of Linux Solutions underscored IBM commitment
to speech tools for Linux. Click "here
for interview details" .
2 November
2000: SONY bundles Dragon NaturallySpeaking® software with hand
held recorder. L&H's Dragon NaturallySpeaking® version
5 is being combined with either the Sony ICD-MS1 Memory Stick
Digital Voice Recorder or the ICD-R100 Digital Voice Recorder.
This combo enables users to dictate documents while away from
a PC. Upon returning to a PC, users download their dictation for
automatic transcription by the Dragon NaturallySpeaking® software.
The software also enables users to easily edit documents and e-mail,
surf the Web, and navigate their desktops.
1 October
1999: Product review of desktop speech recognition software. November
1999 Software Development Magazine contains a hard hitting survey
of desktop dictation offerings. Click "product
reviews" for the latest updates to this article on this
site.
22 June 1999:
Tyranny of headset microphones overthrown. At PC Expo in
New York City, two vendors, Telex and Andrea, showed prototypes
of desktop microphones that would do away with the need to wear
those bulky headset style microphones while using speech recognition
products. Initial demonstrations, which use sophisticated acoustic
wave and phased array processing, were quite impressive.
26 April
1999: IBM announced today support for speech recognition under
the Linux operating system. The initial beta version of
ViaVoice engine and SDK for Linux is available in US English.
Red Hat Software will be the first to distribute IBM's speech
technology as part of the company's Linux 6.0 Application CD.
In addition to offering its ViaVoice SDK and engine for Linux,
IBM will host a Web site for new technology downloads and a discussion
group for technical information and collaboration with fellow
developers. For more information about these services, visit IBM
at http://www.software.ibm.com/speech
and select ``Linux.''
28 January
1999: Lucent Technologies announced the formation of a new business
unit - Lucent Speech Solutions - dedicated solely to the
delivery of speech products all based on Bell Labs speech technology.
In his statement Dan Furman, Lucent Speech Solutions president,
made a noteworthy prediction: "Speech is the interface for the
next generation of networks." What are you doing about this
for your networks?
13 January
1999: Dragon Systems gives speech recognition an Internet push.
Dragon has entered into an agreement with AOL to market products
and online capabilities that utilize speech recognition. The efforts
are "designed to enhance the experience of AOL members, to
accelerate the adoption of speech technology for the Internet,
and to broaden the number of online users by making online access
easier" according to Dragon.
