Embedded Computing Design

Embedded Computing Design – Dec 2011

Many of the largest players in speech technology today are also heavyweights in the mobile phone Operating Systems OS market Microsoft was the first of the software mobile OS giants to build a speech team In the early 1990s Bill Gates preached the benefits of Voice User Interfaces VUIs and predicted they would play a role in human interfacing on computers Google got aggressive by building an elite team of speech technologists early in the 21st century and spurred the mobile industry toward speech interfaces and voice control with its Android release Apple has always been king of the user experience and until recently avoided pushing speech technology because of challenges in accuracy However with the acquisition of Siri a voice concierge service and incorporation of the companys technology into the iPhone 4S Apple could be ushering in a new generation of natural language user experiences through voice Speech technology has become critical to the mobile industry for a variety of reasons primarily because its easier to speak than type and because the mobile phone form factor is built around talking more so than typing Additionally with the enormous revenue potential of mobile search mobile OS providers are seeing the value of adding voice recognition to their technology portfolios Why embedded Much of the heavy lifting for VUIs is performed in the cloud Thats where most of the investment from the big OS players has gone The cloud offers an environment with virtually unlimited MIPS and memory two essentials for advanced voice search processing With this growth of cloud based speech technology usage a similar trend appears to be following in the embedded realm Embedded speech is the only solution that enables speech control and input when access to the cloud is unavailable a necessary feature to add to the user experience Embedded speech also has the ability to consume less MIPS and The ease of speaking a command as opposed to typing it is not only boosting demand for and investment in cloud based voice search processing but also creating the need for embedded speech technologies By addressing several technology stages advances in embedded speech recognition can eliminate issues within noisy environments and improve response times in hands free voice activated mobile devices Growth in mobile and cloud based speech recognition fueling embedded speech technologies By Todd Mozer Silicon Connectivity advancements www embedded computing com Embedded Computing Design December 2011 11