Speech Recognition Offered for Handhelds

As of now, the voice commands that a mobile phone handles are extremely limited. Nuance Communications, Inc., a speech-recognition software developer, is working on changing this. It is trying to utilize wireless carriers for a novel service, to allow hands-free, speech-to-text messages or emails of massive length along with voice-command Web browsing and music downloads.

Nuance’s attempt is the first major endeavor in the field of speech-recognition capability in mobile phones, where earlier efforts were restricted to applying a few voice commands into a phone’s memory. Jeff Kagan, an independent telecommunications analyst, called for introducing more robust speech recognition in handheld devices as an expansion in bandwidth capacity has facilitated an ever-larger quantity of data to be swapped wirelessly.

Nuance Communication admits its system is susceptible to background noise interference as it demands connection with a remote server that has its software. Nuance however claims 99 percent accuracy for its technology in speech-to-text conversion software just as in its latest personal-computer software. Nuance expects various features to hit the market over the next year as a beta version and it is currently being tested by about 10 mobile carriers. The prices are not fixed and the feature could be offered as an add-on to existing mobile product menus.

Source: Mike&Glore