What can you tell us about the current state of speech as an input device for computers-how accurate are the leading speech recognition programs today, and how widely are they deployed? It also needs to understand words that sound the same but are spelled differently, such as to, too,and two.Įveryone I know is skeptical that voice recognition is ready for prime time-either in the world of business or the consumer market. There are over 200,000 words that the system has to recognize. Once the computer recognizes and understands what you’ve said, it can then complete an action based on your spoken command, like delete a file or create a table in Word. Speech recognition also allows you to command your computer. When the computer finds a match, it writes down the word you said. Ozzie Osborne: When you speak, the computer digitizes your vocal signal, breaking it into a grid of sounds and matching it up to established patterns. Can you explain why it's so hard for a computer to understand human speech, and give us a thumbnail on how it works?

It might help if you start with the basics. Hello all and welcome to our guest, Ozzie Osborne, who is here to talk about efforts under way to humanize our computers. You can read more about IBM's speech recognition research and development Osborne was online Thursday to answer your questions about speech recognition technology: how it works, how it is moving beyond the desktop, and how being able to talk directly to computers is likely to impact people and the institutions where they work, learn and play. 'Ozzie' Osborne, (below) the IBM executive who is leading IBM's efforts to change the way humans communicate with computers.Īs general manager of IBM's speech and pen systems business unit, Osborne heads a team of more than 250 people working on technologies that allow computers to recognize and respond to human speech. Welcome to '.com - Live,' a real-time, moderated discussion with the people who are shaping the business strategies in the era of electronic commerce.

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