IBM to Open Voice Recognition Software

phug writes "According to the NY Times, IBM is donating code that it estimates cost the company $10 million to develop. One collection of speech software for handling basic words for dates, time and locations, like cities and states, will go to the Apache Software Foundation. The company is also contributing speech-editing tools to a second open-source group, the Eclipse Foundation." There's not much information out there yet - e.g. no word on licenses etc. It is worth pointing out that the Eclipse Foundation was started by IBM.

Comments

Great news

[wertarbyte]

This is great, ViaVoice has disappeared for quite a while now on linux, I hope that this will open a great variety of cool open source applications. If this will be made modular like e.g. festival, I can think of endless applications worth using it.

Re:Great news

[sgant]

This IS great news because I've been trying to talk into my mouse now for quite a while.

"Computer?.....commmm-PU-terrrrr?"

Now hopefully my co-workers will stop giving me strange looks...well, one can dream can't they? No, I'm asking...can one dream?

Re:Great news

[Gentlewhisper]

I think we will see a lot of cool applications for this like virtual ticket sales counters/telemarketing calls (ask a question through the phone and the computer will look up an answer) as well as tech support phone centres!

No need to outsource to India, opensource it to Linux & ViaVoice!

Woohoo! +1 for IBM again!

Re:Great news

[wertarbyte]

I thought of stuff like gpsdrive or kismet, changing the mapscale gpsdrive shows while driving would be a lot easier with a microphone instead of a touchpad, you could even select another waypoint, or tell gpsdrive to guide you to the nearest McDonalds/Burgerking/CowboyNeal.

Re:Great news

[LnxAddct]

This is like a dream come true. I need voice recognition capabilities for a number of applications and I was just making plans to try out some of the code from CMU's speech project. It looks like it should work well, but I haven't heard much about it so I'm skeptical about its accuracy. Now I'll have another choice and I won't feel like I'm locked into just one, arguably immature, choice for my apps.
Regards,
Steve

Re:Great news

[Anonymous Coward]

I LOVE IBM !

I used to work for those guys about 5 years ago and
they were one of the worst companies going.

Everything was a mess, people were dicks, the
company was falling appart, I think it's amazing
the way that they have transformed themselves and
I hope they continue to have success because their
products are simply superb these days.

Re:Great news

[killergreen]

keyboard...how quaint.

Re:Great news

[Anonymous Coward]

great, so now no jobs for neither indians nor americans.

Re:Great news

[zeromemory]

The last thing I would like to see is a real person replaced with a voice-recognizing computer.

The Alameda County (AC) Transit information number here in the Bay Area uses a voice recognition software to address customer inquiries. The system is very buggy and impractical:

1. Voice recognition is far from perfect. Try getting a computer to recognize the name of a destination or complicated query while you yell it over ambient noise (ex. traffic noise around a bus stop) on a cell phone.

2. The software can only recognize pre-programmed phrases and words. If a user says something that the unexpected, they'll probably get nowhere. Sure, you could present the caller with a list of options, but then why not just make them dial-in options?

Just to compound the problem, the AC Transit system doesn't even provide the option to talk to a real-person!

Re:Great news

[Anonymous Coward]

The last thing I would like to see is a real person replaced with a voice-recognizing computer.

The Alameda County (AC) Transit information number here in the Bay Area uses a voice recognition software to address customer inquiries. The system is very buggy and impractical:

You've only described a system which is poorly implemented/designed. The better systems rely on allowing the user to do either voice or touch tone, with the backup of talking to a real person. Probably 75-95% of all queries can be handled by the automated system. Ideally, the system can handle the first few minutes of the call, figuring out what department the user needs or handing out rote information.

Yeah, it probably sucks for the people who got laid off, but phone work isn't great work anyway. (And pretty easy to outsource to India or the middle-of-nowhere in the midwestern U.S. - plus it's crap pay.) So instead of 100 people making minimum wage, maybe now you only have 10 and you can afford to pay them a decent wage for having to know about the difficult cases.

IOW, you've just replaced your front-line (tier zero) call center with automation, but kept the folks that answered the more difficult (tier 1/2) questions.

Re:Great news

[ungerware]

Calm down, dude. They're not open sourcing their engine, just some developer tools.

Oh, and this is purely stuff for telehony-based speech recognition. As in over-the-phone systems to replace "press 1 for this, press 2 for that" with "say the name of the movie you'd like to see".

The deployed systems are still subject to licensing fees, though.

ViaVoice

[cerberusss]

Is this ViaVoice? The linux packages have been pulled off the IBM site a year or so ago but they're still floating around.

Re:ViaVoice

[sibtrag]

Not likely.

ViaVoice is a wide-vocabulary speech recognition. The article hints at more focused set of target words (times, dates, locations) for the donated package. Sounds much more like the software supporting airlines which use voice recognition systems to help you request flight information.

The strategies are quite different.

ViaVoice encourages you invest some of your time reading training scripts so it can learn your voice and thus recognize a wide variety of words from your specific voice.

The time/date/city system is likely to be speaker independent (no training scripts to read) but much smaller vocabulary.

Re:ViaVoice

[clone22]

I think you're correct. In this type of voice recognition you define a grammar that establishes the words the application expects to hear in a particular state. A state transition occurs when a response matching the grammar is heard.

Re:ViaVoice

[leinhos]

That sounds like the kind of speech recognition one would want for a command/control interface to a computer (or a "smart home"). AFAIK, the Via Voice stuff is targeted at dictation, which is more difficult. Either way, if this becomes GPL-compatible, it opens the doors to hacking and improvement!

Re:ViaVoice

[JohnFluxx]

I hope they do better than eclipse.
Aren't there problems with eclipse's licensing that prevent it running with qt?

Re:ViaVoice

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think it's ViaVoice. IBM sold that to ScanSoft - the root cause for all of the Linux ViaVoice packages vanishing from their website.

ScanSoft also bought Dragon and SpeechWorks. They are the Microsoft of speech recogntion, and have no truck with open-source hippies.

BTW, they are also the Microsoft of optical character recognition, having bought all but one of the players in that space.

Re:ViaVoice

[Anonymous Coward]

It's hard to wreck a nice beach.

Re:ViaVoice

[ungerware]

Nah, they're not open-sourcing the engine. Just some tools used to develop voicexml applications.

Obligatory quote

[ssssmemyself]

Are you sure you meant to say "All your base are belong to us?" Did you mean "All you lasers are better than us?"

Re:Obligatory quote

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha-ha comma I think this is very funnie poops? oops funny period

Code-by-voice

[Max Romantschuk]

Eclipse is actually a kind-of Swiss Army Chainsaw -IDE. You can make plugins for pretty much everything, so one could speculate that a voice recognition plugin would be feasible.

I don't know about everyone else, but the concept of coding by voice does fascinate me. There are obvious issues (like eliminating having to say every single control character (if at all possible)), but with a background of RSI I think it's at least worth a shot.

Thoughts?

Re:Code-by-voice

[Max Romantschuk]

One more thing I forgot to mention in the parent:

Given the fact that most languages have a rather limited vocabulary, and the fact that class libraries and defined functions/variables can be extracted from existing code software like this could make educated guesses on what you were trying to say.

Re:Code-by-voice

[PhiberOptix]

i believe that the voice recognition would not be used on the eclipse (to dictate code to the ide) directly, but inside it as a api or something, so you can implement voice recognition in the software you create with eclipse.

Re:Code-by-voice

[gensolve]

Well, yes, but the software you write could be an Eclipse editor module that gives you 'intellispeak' editing so Parent still valid.

Re:Code-by-voice

[dJOEK]

Eclipse is known for it's good GUI api (or at least it's better than regular swing)

the only way to make voice commands work is to integrate them into your GUI

so your OK-button object does not only have a textlabel-value but also an audiolabel.

this works both ways, one way for accessibility ('hear' what button you will click) and the other way is using your own voice to 'click' it (by saying 'Ok')

Re:Code-by-voice

[LousyPhreak]

this would be nothing more than a nice wow-effect, because most coders write code much faster than speaking it

Re:Code-by-voice

[noselasd]

Thoughts?

I don't quite see myself sitting at my office going,(read out loud)
if parenthese parenthese invar bitwiseor zero x three parentheseend equals
zero or i less than zero parentheseend curlybrace ...
No btw erase from first parenthese on last line to second parentheseend ... arrgh.. invar has a capital V btw.

At any rate I'd guess I can write code faster than I can talk it.

Re:Code-by-voice

[pjt33]

I've dictated LaTeX to ViaVoice and to my Mum. ViaVoice is faster, but it's still painfully slow.

Also, while a language may not use many phrases, identifiers do. It would be a real nuisance having to spell out all my portmanteau camel-case identifiers.

Re:Code-by-voice

[sfire]

if ( ( inVar | 0x3 ) = 0 or i < 0 ) {

and it would lead to the bad practice of using = instead of == :)

Re:Code-by-voice

[noselasd]

Indeed. Though I'd assume speech recognition would use == for equals
and "assign" or something for =. And or would be || ;)
Still, seems like a pain.

Re:Code-by-voice

[JohnFluxx]

Insightful?
The parent even mentioned RSI. Not many coders with bad RSI can type faster than speaking it :P

Re:Code-by-voice

[caveat lector]

Not if writing code causes intense pain. In that case it's a choice between speaking code slowly and creating no code at all.

I hope this ends up meaning open-source voice-recognition. I do hope it does.

(says a double-crush sufferer under major physical therapy)

Re:Code-by-voice

[roadrunnerro]

One thought: read your own link: http://www.eclipse.org/proposals/eclipse-voicetool s/index.html

Re:Code-by-voice

[famebait]

But how about:

"If-block."

if( [condition] ){
[body]
}


"Condition or."


if( [left side] or [right side] ){


"Right side I lessthan zero. Left side parens equals zero."


if( ([number])==0 or i < 0 ){


"Number invar bit-or hex three."


if ( ( inVar | 0x3 ) = 0 or i < 0 ) {


"Body." ...

I might not switch, but I'm sure it could be made usable with some good design.

-Joahcim.

Re:Code-by-voice

[justforaday]

At any rate I'd guess I can write code faster than I can talk it.

Yeah, but can you write it faster than you can think it?

Re:Code-by-voice

[Anonymous Coward]

most coders write code much faster than speaking it

Presuming, of course, that they are able to use a keyboard....

Re:Code-by-voice

[Just Some Guy]

There are obvious issues [..], but with a background of RSI I think it's at least worth a shot.

But would that eliminate RSI or just relocate it? Do you really want to be the first in your cube farm with carpal tongue?

Re:Code-by-voice

[ortholattice]

Excellent suggestion. And think hybrid - use voice when voice is fastest. After saying "if-block", the cursor could be positioned at "[condition]" which is highlighted for replacement, either by typing at the keyboard or another voice command. Combine the best of both worlds. The best use might be to start off with a few common macros that you would ordinarily bind to function keys, and voice would allow you to use them without interrupting your normal typing flow to hunt and peck for an awkward meta key combination.

Re:Code-by-voice

[mandreiana]

It would be complementary. Try to read some portions of code and then type it, which is faster? The voice plugin should add ( ), { } etc where it's necesary. Of course, for editing existing code, voice doen't make sense.

Re:Code-by-voice

[Captain Bumpsickle]

My Master's Thesis work is exactly down this alley! I'm working on a Code-by-voice Java IDE built on Eclipse. I've got prototypes already working and hope to be completed early next year (soon, please....will I ever finish school?!?).

And, yes, it's true - the majority of coders can type faster than they would be able to speak. But, for people who suffer from RSI, what other choices are there?

As the parent said, the key is to structure the environment to be more conducive to speech recognition. Thus, rather than simply dictating code into a text editor, I'm taking more of a syntax-directed approach. This means many of the formatting details (parentheses, semicolons, etc.) will be automatically taken care of and the programmer only has to worry about the details - the individual expressions and statements and the overall structure of the code. This is probably too much hand-holding for most people, but it is probably necessary for coding by voice.

Re:Code-by-voice

[ivar]

This has been a strong interest of mine for some time. After finding limited voice recognition sotware for Linux I had to give up.
My intention was to code while doing cross country biking trips. My life has changed so that this is no longer very likely, but the prospect is still enticing.

Re:Code-by-voice

[toastgoddess]

I don't quite see myself sitting at my office going,(read out loud)
if parenthese parenthese invar bitwiseor zero x three parentheseend equals

No, but I can sure see myself saying

mesh spark-spot slat usr slat bin slat perl

I'd learn all those good old Intercal names for the ASCII characters and have myself an office with a door within a week.

Re:Code-by-voice

[maxwell demon]

IBM open-sources voice recognition software, not thought recognition software.

Of course, the latter would be more efficient, but only if you don't wear your tinfoil hat :-)

Re:Code-by-voice

[LilMikey]

Usually a programmers pain is caused by creating code. Carpal Tunnel is just an excuse to take a few days from the brain racking tedium and PHBs.

Re:Code-by-voice

[sleepingsquirrel]

Isn't there some kind of universal law involved here? If you're writing code as fast as you can type, your language is overly verbose.

Re:Code-by-voice

[Anonymous Coward]

most insightful post ever

Re:Code-by-voice

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know, could have it set to accept something like "camel-command cap-case" for camelCase and even if you had to spell it out once Eclipse keeps track of everything declared and its scope so it would easily figured out identifiers you mean after that without specifying capitalization.

Re:Code-by-voice

[maw]

I was thinking the same thing, basically. More people should be using higher level languages more often.

Re:Code-by-voice

[Trinition]

most coders write code much faster than speaking it

This is probably true, but I'm thinking about actual writing of source code coding. What about some of the other things you do while coding? For example, I think a voice-activated debugger could be nice. I could use voice to command the debugger while another window (i.e. a web browser open to the web app I'm debugging) manipulating/controlling the program.

Re:Code-by-voice

[Max Romantschuk]

One thought: read your own link: http://www.eclipse.org/proposals/eclipse-voicetool s/index.html

Altough your comment is partially relevant to the article, it does not describe what I was referring to.

From the link you posted:

"This project proposal serves to take Eclipse into the voice application space. These tools can be used to develop interactive voice response (IVR) systems based on VoiceXML standards, such as speech-driven applications for performing bank transfers, retrieving e-mail, or querying flight information over the phone"

This project aims to facilitate voice application development with Eclipse. It does not focus on giving Eclipse itself voice capabilities.

Re:Code-by-voice

[Max Romantschuk]

If you're writing code as fast as you can type, your language is overly verbose.

Exactly! And as the sibling post stated; using higher level languages is the key.

I see an application like this as a first step towards having a computer with the capability of writing the actual code. The task of the programmer is provide the creative energy: describing what the program should do, and how.

Python would be a prime candidate to start with on a project like this. It hasn't been called "executable pseudocode" for nothing...

Re:Code-by-voice

[jwr]

Obviously you have never had RSI-related problems and you have a very limited view of the world. For those who cannot type or can only type a limited amount of time, technology like this is really important.

Next time, I'd suggest you use a little more imagination.

Re:Code-by-voice

[LousyPhreak]

i understand that quite some people need stuff like that, but my comment was targeted at using it for coding, not at its general use.

sometimes the subject line IS important to understand the context of a post...

Re:Code-by-voice

[The boojum]

Yes, I could definitely see voice bindings in Emacsen for the more obscure but still occasionaly useful commands.

Also, so much of programming now is simply navigating around a large source base, a task which is orthogonal to modifying or writing the code. I could easily imagine saying, "go to SomeClass dot someMethod" ... type type type (while cursor over a method call) ... "go to definition" ... type type type ... "find callers. go to first caller." ... type type type, build ... "go to first error" ... type type type, etc.

IBM is great!

[charlie763]

I love you, IBM. I want you inside me.

Re:IBM is great!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm just praying that you're not a man...that is one mental picture that I surely do not need.

Re:IBM is great!

[stoborrobots]

OK, so I visited it... so what?

BTW, you might want to fix up your name on the site... I understand that you jumbled it up at the top of the page, but why at the bottom too?

Re:IBM is great!

[Anonymous Coward]

I love you, IBM. I want you inside me.

One microdrive suppository coming right up!

Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it doing this, is it because they think they can make more money with increased software sales? It also might be an advertising campaign, $10 million donation is buying a lot of free coverage.

Corporations dont usually give a way stuff for nothing, in fact their mission by law is to maximize profit.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

What law says a company has to maximize profit? Anyways, a company with a large tax liability may *be* maximizing profit with a large donation to non-profit organizations.

In addition, it probably fits in with their over-all business plan which recently is focused on Linux and other open source initiatives.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, either their spending $10 million on advertising or its free. Make up your mind.

Re:Why?

[vidnet]

The software they're releasing is probably a project they've given up on (since they have the much more developed ViaVoice engine). Instead of letting it rot in a closet like most companies would, they give it away and score an immense amount of geek points in the process.

Re:Why?

[toolio]

Because this same plan has succeded in the past. Take Eclipse, IBM donated the framework for improvement by the open-source community and use it to build their prioprietory Websphere package. They don't have to worry about improving the API, just the extra features that make it worthwhile to buy.

The same scenario applies here.

Re:Why?

[mod_parent_down]

They foresaw Microsoft pursuing voice rec, decided not to just let them have that as a platform differentiating feature. Besides, they're not releasing it with the intention of seeing it stagnate... they want to see it grow, but they don't want to foot the whole bill.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

IBM is a "solutions company".

They don't make money on software like other companies. The software they develope is used to provide solutions to other people's problems.

Problems they pay IBM to fix. A large portion of the world is now using Linux for stuff. It's free, it's stable, it's as good as a midrange server OS as anything else out there.

They want to use Linux, IBM wants to get their money. So IBM supports Linux.

Also other aspects is what IBM likes. IBM needed a new OS for everything. They have Mainframes, Unix servers, database servers. S/390, Power series, AS/400, etc etc etc.

For a long time IBM dumped money into propriatory software. Once the platform was antiquated, so was their software, and so the millions of dollars of money they put into their own closed source software is a dead end in just a few years. For all the mainframes, database software, developement software, power series, x86, etc etc etc . All these can be fuffilled by Linux. A open source software OS can provide all the functionality that they NEED.

Of course something like OS/400 is better then Linux at running databases, but IBM has the capabilities of making nearly as good. Also this developement also benifits other platforms they support, that OS/400 won't run on.

Buy using Linux they reduce the duplication of effort. No more OS/400 then AIX then this , then that. All of it can be linux, on nearly all their hardware. They just have to make it work.

That's just one of the reasons. They make money from solutions, not software. People buy IBM to make things work, they don't care HOW or WHY, but they want things to work. With Linux they can get things working, cheaper, and eventually cheaper.

No more dumping billions of lines of code into various bits of software that don't integrate and will be obsolete in 3 years. Linux has the potential, thru it's system design and open-ness and flexiblity to never go obsolete.. It'll just change with the times.

Plus IBM would like to see Linux on the desktop, so they can basicly tell microsoft to fuck themselves when time comes.

With this particular bit of software it ties into their websphere and database efforts. Reseptionists can just talk into the computer, people can just talk into the phone, and the computer understands.

But it's worthless without the database and the infrastructure to back it up. If most of the rest of the infrastructure is open source to their customers, why make this little bit of it closed source? It just doesn't make sense.

Sensationalist headlines like "cost IBM 10 million dollars to produce" is misleading.

IBM doesn't give a flying fuck how much money it cost to make it.

There is a well know thing called "sunk cost". It basicly means that money that is spent, is spent. Your not going to get it back. You don't survive long in business if you don't "get" this concept.

A extreme example:

Say you spent 100,000 dollars on a Windows solution. You have found out now that a Linux solution costing 2000 dollars can do what you want, and better.

Your potential to make money on the new system is very high. Your potential to make money on the old system is very low.

Which is smarter? To dump the old software and go with the new to make lots and lots of money? Or to keep the old software just because "you don't want to waste the 100,000 dollars".

A intellegent person will go with the money making sceme and dump the money pit. A stupid person will be blinded by the sacrifice and stick with the old solution because they can't think clearly.

IBM is all about making money. If they figure they can save money by using Linux vs AIX they will. They do recommend it to some of their existing AIX customers...

Think about it this way:
Linux is cheaper and almost as good. IBM saves money, their customers save money. More saved money by IBM customers means that they are more likely to grow and make even more money.

Re:Why?

[slaad]

It probably won't even compile. :)

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Corporations dont usually give a way stuff for nothing, in fact their mission by law is to maximize profit.

Even non-profit corporations?

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Idiot.


Slow Down Cowboy!

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Re:Why?

[sevinkey]

IBM's charisma +3 in my book, not that I had a problem with them before :)

I'd love to get my house wired star trek style, and now (hopefully) this is one less issue I need worry about... where to find reliable open source voice recognition

Re:Why?

[Zachary Kessin]

What he said, plus this gives IBM a few other things for not much money. First of all having one OS for all of their platforms is very useful. The fact that linux comes with so much software already makes it even better. IBM has wanted a comon OS for years I bet, now they have one.

The other thing is that they like the idea of having one very common OS, like windows is. But with windows someone else controls it. With Linux IBM can go where they want, even if Linus wants to go somewhere else. Now I imagine IBM is pretty good at getting Linus et al to do the things that they consider very important when they need it. They seem to have figured out how to play in the free software game better than most.

Like the parrent said IBM never really made money on AIX, I'm sure it made a profit for them, but they mostly did it because they needed it to sell services etc. being able to do it with linux means that they can cut out a lot of costs in several places.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice post, but you forget that IBM is a lot more than one company.

They don't make money on software like other companies. The software they develope is used to provide solutions to other people's problems.

No. IBM makes lots of money off software and patents for software processes. WebSphere Application Server, WebSphere Portal Server, Lotus Notes, and of course DB2 make up over a billion dollars in revenue last I heard. Granted, that's less than 5% of IBM's total revenue but it's still income.

They want to use Linux, IBM wants to get their money. So IBM supports Linux.

For IBM Global Services, yes. For Server Group's blade series, yes. For Software Group, hell no. Where is the Lotus Notes client that runs on anything but Windows?

For a long time IBM dumped money into propriatory software. Once the platform was antiquated, so was their software, and so the millions of dollars of money they put into their own closed source software is a dead end in just a few years. For all the mainframes, database software, developement software, power series, x86, etc etc etc . All these can be fuffilled by Linux. A open source software OS can provide all the functionality that they NEED.

No. z/OS has far more capabilities in the traditional business-oriented mainframe space than Linux at present, and it's stupid for IBM to try to push a Unix-like OS into a tightly-controlled mainframe environment. IBM *is* pushing Linux-on-mainframe as a consolidated web hosting environment, but IBM has no plans to kill z/OS.

No more dumping billions of lines of code into various bits of software that don't integrate and will be obsolete in 3 years. Linux has the potential, thru it's system design and open-ness and flexiblity to never go obsolete.. It'll just change with the times.

Not really. First, *lots* of IBM's software never exits the lab, and much that does dies a nasty death in the market. (See Tivoli for dozens of examples.) Second, IBM is riding the Linux bandwagon simply because *it has to* in order to survive.

Plus IBM would like to see Linux on the desktop, so they can basicly tell microsoft to fuck themselves when time comes.

No they don't. If they did they would port Lotus Notes (IBM's flagship desktop application) to Linux.

Sensationalist headlines like "cost IBM 10 million dollars to produce" is misleading.

IBM doesn't give a flying fuck how much money it cost to make it.

IBM does care, a lot, about how much it costs to build something. Let me tell you an IBM internal secret: Eclipse was meant to take down *MS Visual Studio* back in *2000*. Yes, IBM was hoping that Eclipse would *outsell* VS, and when that obviously couln't happen IBM turned it into a marketing win. And lest we forget history already: it took several months of open-source activity before Eclipse was usable by the masses.

Say you spent 100,000 dollars on a Windows solution. You have found out now that a Linux solution costing 2000 dollars can do what you want, and better...

A intellegent person will go with the money making sceme and dump the money pit. A stupid person will be blinded by the sacrifice and stick with the old solution because they can't think clearly.

An intelligent person will evaluate the total business cost of that solution, and ask themselves if they have enough in-house experience to run the Linux solution with the same apparent reliability as the Windows solution. If you've got some *nix talent in-house, the switch is worth it. If you don't have that talent, then the *one-time* cost of $98,000 is more than offset by the continual cost of a new full-time salary.

Think about this: I could go with a cheapo MS MS SQL setup for my company or a expensive IBM database.

Or you could look at the "free" open-source database and cut both Microsoft and IBM out of the picture.

Because it works 99.99995% of the time, an

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

For the 11-billionth time:
The mission of corporations, by law, is to carry out the will of its owners. That will may be to maximize profit. That will may be to give away free teddy bears until they run out of money. For the love of god stop trying to convince people that corportations==profit. It's not true and it's certainly not the law.

Re:Why?

[anomalous cohort]

Why is it doing this

I'm sure that this post will get modded as "flamebait" or "troll" but, from my own experience using ViaVoice, this looks more like yea ole "instead of admitting that our product is a failure, we'll just turn it into a marketing coup by releasing it as open source" strategy.

I purchased ViaVoice about a year or so ago as an add on to a digital recorder for my wife. My wife followed all the instructions very carefully. She went through the training phase and would always speak very slowly, carefully, and articulately. The accuracy rate was incredibly poor. They could also declare victory by rebranding it as a great dada poetry generator.

Re:Why?

[ungerware]

The stuff they're open sourcing is all pretty minor. They're not releasing their speech recognition engine. Just some tools for creating voicexml content that _runs_ on the engine. You still get charged a per-port license when deploying the application, as well as professional services involved in helping you create a good app.

And by "you", I mean large enterprise call center customers. This software has just about zero usefulness for average joe hacker (though it is fun to play with).

Oh, and the tools they _are_ open sourcing represent their state of the art ... about 3 years ago.

Re:Why?

[aminorex]

> IBM is NOT here to promote Linux or save the world.

That might not be their motivation, but it might be the *exact* reason why God created IBM.

Re:Why?

[ACPosterChild]

I think that IBM the Company is more interested in the $10M tax writeoff. (Not to say that IBM isn't great to the FOSS community)

Re:Why?

[David Leppik]

The software they're releasing is probably a project they've given up on (since they have the much more developed ViaVoice engine). Instead of letting it rot in a closet like most companies would, they give it away and score an immense amount of geek points in the process.

Actually, no. Speech rec is a pretty big business in call centers, as in "Speak the name of the city which you want to fly to..." That sort of thing is hard to do with touch-tone, and expensive to do with live agents. IBM's has a reputation for being worse than its competitors, but still adequate.

What this does is hit Microsoft's SALT before it gets traction. Right now the big debate in the industry is SALT vs. VoiceXML. SALT is being used for a number of prototypes and toy projects, but hasn't yet gotten beyond the "real servers run Unix" attitude in the industry. (Much like Microsoft's DNA thing several years ago... you couldn't tell from reading the advertisements and trade magazines that M$ wasn't getting any traction.)

In short, from the conversations I've had lately (I was at a speech conference this past week) this is an attack on Microsoft. But the real loosers are likely to be the major speech recognition telephony companies (not M$, which is a niche player) which now have to prove that their tool set is enough better to command the big bucks they've been charging.

As for ViaVoice, that's a much different product. It can handle much more flexible grammars, but it also trains on specific voices. When you're making airline reservations over the phone you don't want to spend five or ten minutes training the speech recognizer. Very different technologies.

That means one ore thing missing in linux gone?

[drmancini]

When you look at GNU/Linux as a complex system and think of the things that users complain about when Linux usability is concerned, GPL'd speech recognition software is definitely one of them.

Hooray for IBM and as Ali said in the Linux ad "don't back down"!!

grammar checker

[Anonymous Coward]

It is great to see some open voice recognition.
But does the exist any open grammar checker software ???

Viable

[tuxter]

Is voice recognition software really viable? When you take into account the different accents, dialect and slang, is it just a pipe dream? Is it a software or hardware related issue?

Re:Viable

[fymidos]

>Is voice recognition software really viable? When
>you take into account the different accents,
>dialect and slang, is it just a pipe dream? Is it a
>software or hardware related issue?

the real problem is propably the different voices. the others i can live without.. ( besides it's good for my mind to be able to say some *()$#% dialect that the computer won't understand )

Re:Viable

[Metryq]

I've run into some very slick voice recognition software -- some of it is in use on telephone navigation systems (rather than having to punch a number). Considering the world-wide nature of one company I found using this, it must be very reliable. (The person I finally ended up talking to said that the system rarely stumbles.)

Re:Viable

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes it is viable. Speaking as someone who has worked with and written such applications using VXML (but not using WebSphere) the systems in general don't have much difficulty with accents. Obviously a clear and precise English accent generates fewer errors than someone with a strong Scottish or Texan accent, but the system still copes. (Even without needing to "train" the system to your voice!)

What's even cooler is voice-authentication. which can still successfully authenticate you even if you've got a cold or sore-throat etc because the underlying characteristics of your voice don't change. Obviously it won't authenticate you if you're an imposter.

Re:Viable

[notthepainter]

Yes and no.

I used to work for MacSpeech, we also did large vocabulary dictation systems like ViaVoice.

Back when I was there it really wasn't viable for most people.

However, not all people can type, this includes both the "Hands Free" market (disabilities) and the "Hands Busy" market. Surprisingly, many people also don't want to type, this includes medical and legal professionals. They have an interesting problem, they often need to generate large amounts of boilerplate text quickly. Doctors, Radiologist, Lawyers are also all pretty smart and they heavily use the macro packages to contstruct documentation systems that suit their needs exactly. As you might also imagine, VARS step in and also make these macros.

Is it for you? Maybe not, but it is for a lot of people.

Re:Viable

[magefile]

In theory, it's a software issue. In practice, I haven't even been able to get my microphone working in Linux well enough to use Skype.

Re:Viable

[ezy]

More than viable. Call Amtrak and get a few train schedules. :-)

Re:Viable

[WuphonsReach]

I've run into some very slick voice recognition software -- some of it is in use on telephone navigation systems (rather than having to punch a number). Considering the world-wide nature of one company I found using this, it must be very reliable. (The person I finally ended up talking to said that the system rarely stumbles.)

Verizon Business Internet unit uses voice recognition for their first level of the help system. It asks for your account number (say or key it in) and then attempts to ask you about what sort of issue you are having. Pretty slick, although the voice unit is a bit slow with the script.

Basically, they've replaced their front-line call center as well as the first few minutes of every call with this system. I think you can even get simple information such as dial-up numbers, order status, etc with it.

Still keeps the reps off the phone for another few minutes per call (the "gathering information phase"), which probably pays for itself even without the call routing features.

Re:Viable

[edittard]

this includes both the "Hands Free" market (disabilities) and the "Hands Busy" market.

Not many people are combat pilots or need to operate computers while driving. Or did you mean pr0n?

Re:Viable

[mgcarley]

I'm a New Zealander. I've never had any issues with Voice Recognition software. We have no accents. :)

(It's true though: We dont slant our vowels like the Australians, the British and especially the Americans.)

Re:Viable

[mgcarley]

Heh. Thats a troll if ever I saw one.

Around 2 decades late...

[Xpilot]

...if only computers (namely Macs) had this technology back in the 80's our favourite 23rd century engineering hero wouldn't have had so much trouble using one at the plexiglass plant. "Hellooooo computer". Still cracks me up.

Re:Around 2 decades late...

[mrchaotica]

Well, Macs do have it now, at least!

Re:Around 2 decades late...

[Anonymous Coward]

AFAICR, a simple speech recognition system was available on System 7.x (1991?)

Re:good Big Corp?

[AgntOrnge]

Nice way to take a related issue to the company and leave out the important facts to make your point.

Human-Centered Computing!

[Milo Fungus]

My brother (who works for IBM) recently sent me an article on USA Today about the system IBM and Honda have developed for speech-interface with a GPS-enabled navigation computer. Really cool stuff.

For those of you who haven't read it, check out The Unfinished Revolution by Michael Dertouzos. I don't agree with all of his analysis (he was a little lacking in pragmatism on some points), but overall this book was very insightful. This book, along with Weaving the Web by Tim Berners-Lee, caused a big paradigm shift in my thinking about computer technology.

Re:Human-Centered Computing!

[edittard]

caused a big paradigm shift

BINGO!!!!

Code or training?

[SWroclawski]

In the late 90s I talked with an IBM representative about releasing the ViaVoice source under a Free Software license and the person I talked to (I don't recall his name) said that they might be willing to release the source code- the code wasn't valuable to them. The value in the ViaVoice is the "thousands of hours of training" that the code uses to determine words and voices.

So my question is- will the code released include training to make it work and or will someone be able to put together the necessary resources to train the system.

Re:Code or training?

[maxwell demon]

Maybe set up sort of a ViaVoice@Home project where every geek can help training the software?
Actually it should be quite easy: The client reads your keyboard and the microphone, and you are supposed to speak loudly whatever you type. The training results are regularly exchanged with the central server.

Re:Code or training?

[sibtrag]

In the training sessions I've taken part in (at the IBM TJ Watson Research lab) they give us scripts to read. Sessions take place with various amounts of background noise (sound-proof room, over a telephone, in the cafeteria, in a car).

And they give us a free lunch coupon afterwards. Will read script for food. :-)

Re:Code or training?

[SWroclawski]

Yes, while it's technically possible to make this a sort of distributed project, it would require a lot of work. Even beyond the technical "get voices recorded", the trick in training is to know what needs to be recorded and how to train the system with the data.

Anyone whose ever worked with a netural network can tell you that real training is a sort of half skill half art. Even assuming you can get all the people to read the script (a big undertaking but certainly doable), you'd have to know how to train the system.

I've learned never to doubt the experise of the Free Software community, but I wonder if the expertise will emerge out of the rough and if it'll be successful.

The point of the post is to realize that source code isn't always all that's needed.

Re:Code or training?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Maybe set up sort of a ViaVoice@Home project where every geek can help training the software?"

So, basically, you want to give every immature person with a microphone the chance to teach your computer that "the" is spelt f u c k.

Sign me up!

psh

[Anonymous Coward]

They'll never do better than Microsoft Sam!

Oh...this is voice recognition...umm...let me revise.

They'll never be able to understand Microsoft Sam!

HTK is already availabale as open source

[virtigex]

From the article, it looks like they are making their network grammar version available, not their dictation grammar version. There are types of continuous speech recognition engines, the simple version that uses a hand-crafted network grammar (which seems to be the version that they are talking about), which can be used to recognize simple utterances such as dates, and one that uses a statictical language model and which can recognize an entire language.

This is not earth-shattering news, since HTK has been available for some years. HTK was owned by a company called Entropic and was released as open source when it was bought by Microsoft. HTK can be found at http://htk.eng.cam.ac.uk/. and can handle network grammars. This lessens the impact of IBM's news.

Re:HTK is already availabale as open source

[Curt Cox]

Sphinx is a speaker-independent large vocabulary continuous speech recognizer under Berkeley's style license. It is also a collection of open source tools and resources that allows researchers and developers to build speech recognition system.

FreeTTS is a speech synthesizer written entirely in the Java programming language.

Re:HTK is already availabale as open source

[melkorainur]

> This lessens the impact of IBM's news.
I don't know about that. Checking out the HTK license shows the following:

Can I build & sell products based on HTK3? You may build a product but you are not allowed to redistribute (parts of) HTK3, i.e. you can't ship shrink-wrap boxes with products that contain HTK3 code.
That's no where close to a license providing freedom. It'll be interesting to see what license IBM picks.

Eclipse licensing

[beef3k]

It is also worth noting that the Eclipse Foundation recently introduced the Eclipse Public License, and are in the process of transitioning all code from the CPL to the EPL.

All new contributions will be under the EPL, so if IBM wants to donate anything to the Eclipse project it will be under this license.

Nice M$-Comment at the end

[echappement]

Nice title;
Speech code from IBM to become open source

And even better.. the comment from Microsoft, quoted at the end of the article
"IBM has not executed in bringing this technology to a broad market as Microsoft has."

Beside the jokes; The article states as well that Microsoft introduced their Speech Server 2004 last March, and that 100,000 software programmers have downloaded Microsoft's free software developers' kit for building speech applications on its Windows .Net technology. What exactly is the difference in quality and approach between the package from M$ and the one here mentioned from IBM ?

Re:Nice M$-Comment at the end

[Anonymous Coward]

If memory serves correctly, M$ joined the "supreme governing council of elders who decide on speech standards" (or whatever they were called) got some good ideas, then left to hash up their own standard. Nice tactics.

This is a SALT vs VXML argument here. Where SALT = Microsoft = Bad and VXML = open = Good. Not that I'm bias.

Essentially, to use the M$ version you must use M$ servers and use a specific tags as deinfed by Microshaft.

However, if you use VXML you use a standard set of tags on any server which can therefore be used by any speech browser (like Verascape, VoiceGenie etc).

I've never seen (heard) a SALT application working so I can't vouch for the quality one way or the other, but I have developed a number of VXML appliactions, the quality of which is limited by the voice browser not the VXML. So if your browser blows, you can use someone elses. Which of course isn't something you can do going down M$'s route.

Re:Nice M$-Comment at the end

[Elwood P Dowd]

With IBM's new donation, you could build a peice of consumer hardware that plugs into a wall socket & a phone line and runs your voice applications over the phone.

You could build 10,000 boxes and sell them around the world without any licensing fees.

That is somewhat different from a solution developed with Microsoft Speech Server 2004.

Re:Nice M$-Comment at the end

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice FUD re MS not supporting other browsers ... In the first instance, I belive this is wrong. In the second instance, most applications today are not web so don't require browsers

Regarding standardization of tabs, I have heard other vendors compete quite vigourously and not on standardizing. Recent price pressures in this market has caused deep competition in the services space (reads make your services personnell stick in the account, don't standardize on anything which can get you kicked out easily)

As far as the original question, it is simply too early to tell, but my guess is that the hints in the article are true and that this is a cut-down version of the full product. It might still be very useful, though - and I expect you get even better results if you pay the full price.

Re:Nice M$-Comment at the end

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not talking about web browsers, I'm talking about VOICE browsers. You can have more than just web browsers. The terms "voice browser" relates to the piece of kit that has a connection to the application source (usually a web/application server) on one end and a row of E1s on the otherside. (Or T1s depending on which side of the Atlantic you are.) The voice browser is essentially the interface between the two.

If you think of a web browser as something that shows text and listens for mouse clicks, then the voice browser is something that plays sounds (text-to-speech) and listens for input (ASR).

Check http://www.w3c.org/Voice/ for Voice Browsing

And it wasn't just the standardisation of tags that I was refering to. Write a webpage in Opera and it might not show the same in IE, although both are written in HTML. Write a voice-app in VXML for VoiceGenie voice browsers and you'll get a similar problem develop when trying to run it under Verascape's browsers. What MS did was rewrite a standard from scratch and went with SALT. Example; It's as if they decided not to support HTML in IE anymore, so anyone wishing to write a webpage for IE must use their new M$ML web authoring toolkit.

Re:Nice M$-Comment at the end

[ungerware]

With IBM's new donation, you could build a peice of consumer hardware that plugs into a wall socket & a phone line and runs your voice applications over the phone.

You could build 10,000 boxes and sell them around the world without any licensing fees.

That is somewhat different from a solution developed with Microsoft Speech Server 2004.

Afraid not. IBM is open sourcing 2 things, neither of which is their speech recognition engine. One is just a JSP library, with some tags for generating voicexml for dates, times, currency grammars, etc. The other is some tools code for eclipse. Modules for editing voicexml, ccxml, grxml, etc. A fancy XML editor. Ho hum.

Really not much to see here.

IBM also has a grammar based system.

[perky]

IBM also has (or rather had in 98,99,2000) a grammar based recognition system based on the same engine, but using compiled grammars and naturally a cut down acoustic model dependant on the contents of the grammar. There was also a toolset, supporting compiling grammars from BNF, building speech telephony applications and so forth.

IBM Hursley labs had a name dialler 5 years ago that let you phone the computer, say the name fo the person you wanted to speak with, and get put through. They also had a system that provided weather forecasts based on the name of the city or country you said. I was pleased to name the latter "Global Weather Information System" or GWIS, pronounced Gee-whizz. Both ran on the machine under my desk. Both worked reasonably well, especially given that a lot of the acoustic models for names and places were automagically generated.

Re:IBM also has a grammar based system.

[clone22]

I recall a guy in an IBM lab back about '93 that was working with Dragon Dictate code on OS2. Do you happen to know if Via Voice derived from Dragon?

Re:IBM also has a grammar based system.

[perky]

It wasn't. IBM had been doing theoretical work in speech recognition for some time, and had developed their own speech engine and acoustic and language models for supported languages. Sooner or later thay might even get around to doing something commercial with the technology!

Re:HTK is NOT availabale as open source

[bonniot]

I was suspicious about MS releasing anything under an Open Source license, so I checked. From HTK's license:

2.1 The Licensor hereby grants the Licensee a non-exclusive license to a) make copies of the Licensed Software in source and object code form for use within the Licensee's organisation; b) modify copies of the Licensed Software to create derivative works thereof for use within the Licensee's organisation.

2.2 The Licensed Software either in whole or in part can not be distributed or sub-licensed to any third party in any form.

This license is in no way Open Source. Yes, you can play with the source, but you cannot build something useful with it and redistribute under the same license.

Good news indeed

[jefu]

I've used ViaVoice for dictation and it was very good indeed. One of the serious lacks at this point in the linux community has been speech recognition software - opening this up will make lots of cool things possible.

Good will and a tax deduction

[hrvatska]

Good will in the geek community, free publicity for something that would have just laid around collecting dust otherwise, and maybe a $10 million tax deduction for donating to a non-profit. Not sure about the tax deduction, but this is a donation to a charitable organization, and you can deduct the value of what you donate to these organizations, such as the value of a used car.

Re:Good will and a tax deduction

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux isn't a chariatable orginization.

It's a full-fledged, capitolist, competative, midrange server OS.

You don't get tax breaks for open sourcing software.

Three Words

[Anonymous Coward]

Tax Write Off

Sphinx

[agentk]

Hmm, this is nice, but I was never impressed by ViaVoice. Sphinx is much better to work with.

Reed

Re:Sphinx

[tigersha]

How does Sphinx and ViaVoice compare? I am seriously thinking of playing with these two thingies but I would like to have some kind of a opinion fro a serious user.

Thanks.

Re:Sphinx

[Anonymous Coward]

Sphinx is free software. ViaVoice is owned by ScanSoft (IBM sold it to them). ViaVoice is only supported on MS Windows platforms, although there is a crufty old pre-ScanSoft tarball floating around that you would be lucky to get to compile.

Sphinx is a very good recognizer, but you'll have to build your own grammar (there are "toy" grammars available). ViaVoice makes you spend 4 hours training it, and then it will only recognize your voice.

ScanSoft ViaVoice will run fine on a 1GHz computer or less. Sphinx, using a grammar of any reasonable size, needs a 32-note Beowulf cluster of dual-core Opterons to do real-time speech recognition. Well, that's an exaggeration, but you get the idea.

Re:Sphinx

[Anonymous Coward]

"Sphinx, using a grammar of any reasonable size, needs a 32-note Beowulf cluster of dual-core Opterons to do real-time speech recognition"

But with the new software from transitive corporation, I can run that on my trusty 33Mhz Palm PDA without loss of performance, so what is the problem?

Re:Sphinx

[ungerware]

They compare a lot like apples and oranges. ViaVoice is designed for dictation-type applications. No restricted grammar, but you have to train it on your voice.

Sphinx is designed for "directed dialogs". The computer asks you a question. The computer has a set of expected responses. The thing you say had better be one of those.

This is not as useless as it sounds. Directed dialog is used quite widely in the call center business, because "what city would you like to fly to?" is a lot better than "press 1 for boston, press 2 for new york, press 3 for los angeles, press 4 for ..."

Re:Sphinx

[tigersha]

So if want to wire one to my MP3 collection Sphinx would be better. I am sure I could dynamically create a grammar with my collection to feed into Sphinx.

CMU Sphinx

[Roger_Wilco]

Free software for speech recognition.

Re:HTK is NOT availabale as open source

[Paul Lamere]

For an open-source speech recognition system with a real open source licence check out the CMU Sphinx Project, a family of speech recognition engines, training tools and associated acoustic and language models. The latest version Sphinx-4 is written in Java and is released under a BSD-style license.

Flamebait?

[sgant]

I make a reference to "Star Trek 4" when Scotty held the mouse up and was speaking into it and it's labled "flamebait"?

Oh well, I suppose the moderators are wiser than I.

Re:Flamebait?

[Anonymous Coward]

A Star Trek fan may have modded you such, thinking you made fun of Scotty, when James Doolan just recently passed away..

That, or they mis-modded by way of clumsiness :)

Re:Flamebait?

[sgant]

when James Doolan just recently passed away

He didn't just pass away. Where did you pull this from?

Re:Obligatory....

[hummassa]

2. sell a lot of hardware and associated extended warranties and servicing and consulting and other services and support.

Use in games?

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine hooking this up to, say, Quake 3 Arena, and being able to switch weapons without moving your hands.

"Railgun!"
"BFG!"
"Chain gun!"

Re:Use in games?

[mailtomomo]

"Fuck ! A zombie !
Hey ?! Wha ? Ewwwww"
Goatse/Quake crossover ?

voice vs speech recognition

[jthayden]

This is an example of speech recognition not voice.

Voice recognition is identifiying an individual by there voice. Example: movie Sneakers which any good geek should have seen. "My voice is my passport, verify."

Speech recognition is simply trying to identify the words being spoken. Like the lackluster system used by United when you call up to get flight times.

Re:voice vs speech recognition

[mcbevin]

I like how you call speech recognition 'simply' trying to identify the words, vs voice recognition which has to identify the individual by their voice.

Voice recognition is in fact a _lot_ simpler than speech recognition. I worked on a research project about 5 years back which involved voice recognition - it was based on a relatively simple mathematical model, required very little training, and was quite accurate. I wanted to combine it with a speech recognition system (so while someone was using the speech recognition, it would continuosly check that they were the correct person), but never got very far with that idea.

We also had a typing recognition system which would learn someone's typing 'style' and then throw up a logon dialog if it detected anyone else typing (and the logon dialog not only checked that the password matched, but also that it was typed in the write 'style' - kind of like a signature). This also worked surprisingly well, however never made it out of the lab as far as I know, although I have seen some surprisingly bad performing (given how reasonably simple the problem is) commercial products that attempt do some of this.

Re:voice vs speech recognition

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right the implementation is not simple, but the idea is simple to grasp.

The typing recognition system is an interesting idea, but it would likely annoy me since I sometimes type one handed when I'm doing multiple things. I can just see it logging me out all of the time.

Why not implement a fingerprint scanner on some of the keys ( home row? ) so that it constantly reverifies? Just a thought off the cuff given the problem of not trusting a typer. Maybe useful for rich places like the CIA?

The code was donated to 2 non-profit organizations

[hrvatska]

The code is being donated to the Apache Software Foundation and the Eclipse Foundation. From http://www.apache.org/foundation/faq.html:

The Apache Software Foundation (ASF) is a non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation, incorporated in Delaware, USA, in June of 1999.

From http://www.eclipse.org/org/documents/Eclipse%20BYL AWS%202003_11_10%20Final.pdf

The Eclipse Foundation is formed exclusively as a non-profit trade association, as set out in section 501 (c) (6) of the Internal Revenue Code (the "Code").

Voice software

[RichardX]

Modern voice dictation software is pretty good I'm using viavoice now to write this and I find bark bark shaddup I find that it bark bark shut up damnit bark bark don't make me come down there I find that bark bark okay that's it I'm coming down there argh crash thud bark bark bark bark bark bark

Re:Voice software

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny that this would be the quote at the bottom of the slashdot screen: One big pile is better than two little piles. -- Arlo Guthrie

Re:Voice software

[3) profit!!!]

Parent's joke was shamelessly stolen from here: http://www.spamusement.com/view.php?id=43

Re:Voice software

[allenhiggins]

And worth recreating/repeating, it's like the entire story was setup as the straight guy for this joke! Had me in stitches (should have been credited of course _if_ it is the original)

Re:Voice software

[RichardX]

Ah-ha! That's where it came from
I'd seen it as a cartoon printed out on an office wall once.. I'd have given credit if I knew where it came from. I guess I should've at least said it wasn't mine, but fwiw now: it wasn't mine.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

"Troll"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone take that moderator stick from the insane guy over there.

uh oh

[Anonymous Coward]

This is really going to mess with the "Free as in beer/speech" analogies :)

Beer?

[bsartist]

Does this mean that speech is now free as in beer?

Re:Beer?

[Edie O'Teditor]

Does this mean that speech is now free as in beer?

Don't know, but they say that talk is cheap.

How True

[mindhaze]

Sadly, the following, from TFA, is true:

"This is a case of IBM following Microsoft," said James Mastan, director of marketing for Microsoft Speech Technologies. "IBM has not executed in bringing this technology to a broad market as Microsoft has."

IBM could have really taken the lead here if htey would have opened their doors earlier! Grr. Mind you, IBM does have the ability to really open the doors in the OS world, so all is not lost.

It's obviously the spread of communism

[Anonymous Coward]

Big Blue is becoming Big Red. It all makes sense when you think about it. Let's hope they are merciful when they start taking prisoners from M$FT.

More info about eclipse and voice recognition

[Anonymous Coward]

A voice tools proposal has been posted on eclipse site.

If it's given to Apache, it'll be the Apache lic.

[Elwood P Dowd]

(See subject.)

(Duh.)

Re:Obligatory....

[Anonymous Coward]

Flamebait?!

Parent is sage and insightful, and the OP would do well to follow its advice.

Not what you think - here's something that is

[ibi]

They're not open-sourcing anything resembling ViaVoice to the Eclipse folks. Check out the eclipse voice tools proposal. It's directed at making it easier at creating call-center type voice reco apps - not at making Eclipse a voice-directed IDE.

If you're interested in open-source voice recognition check out OSSRI - an effort to bring together some sort of practical large vocab speech recog to linux. They're just starting up, but the mailing list archives hold a fair amount of discussion about the current state of the open-source SR world. (Which, to sum up, isn't that great :-) As a stop-gap they're hoping to get WINE support for Dragon/Scansoft NaturallySpeaking.

Let me know when they start giving away...

[nusratt]

...all of the IBM voice-recognition software I keep getting spammed about, so the spammers lose their incentive.

VoiceXML IDE

[gawi]

I believe IBM is opening Voice Toolkit for WebSphere Studio.

It's a product based on the Eclipse patform (not a plugin, more a standalone application).

It's a VoiceXML-oriented IDE. In a nutshell, VoiceXML is a specification that defines how to make a speech recognition (or DTMF) application for the *phone* (not the desktop) using a Web model (that is, exchanging documents over HTTP). The toolkit developped by IBM allows programmers to build call flows graphically, to edit VoiceXML and grammar documents, to manipulate pronounciation dictionnaries and to do other related tasks. I believe this is the part that they are going to give to Eclipse.

The other piece they're going to open is "Reusable Dialog Components", a set of VoiceXML documents (or templates), grammars and code. Theses modules allow programmer to combine different components together in order to build a complete application. I think this part is going to Apache.

Also note that:

Currently, Voice Toolkit for WebSphere Studio is only available on Windows

Although VoiceXML is a growing standard, many area are still uncovered by the spec. AFAIK, this toolkit is not likely to integrate nicely with run-time platforms other than IBM WebSphere Voice Server.

This is just an IDE. You need to buy the runtime (the VoiceXML gateway). I really don't think they will open their speech recognition software (a lot more than a 10M$ investment).

Re:HTK is NOT availabale as open source

[gunnarE]

This license is in no way Open Source. Yes, you can play with the source, but you cannot build something useful with it and redistribute under the same license.

You are right that HTK is not OpenSource and nowhere on the web site does it claim to be. However, your second claim is totaly wrong. Many groups use HTK to train acoustic models and language models that they then ship in their products (with their own recognition software).

Gunnar (maintainer of HTK)

Imagine this!

[tuite]

It would be cool if this was integrated into a project like dashboard http://www.nat.org/dashboard/.
Dashboard would create cluepackets from the speechrecognition software and dig up info on what whatever you are talking about.
I would be cool for a radiostation, they could get cool trivia on whatever the callers or dj is talking about.
And it would be cool if you just could pipe your favourite radiostation throught dashboard and get relevant info as you listen! ;)

sphinx?

[Anonymous Coward]

hey aht about Sphinx

Either way...

[Eric Damron]

"This is a case of IBM following Microsoft," said James Mastan, director of marketing for Microsoft Speech Technologies."

Maybe. When did IBM come out with ViaVoice? It's been a number of years. They even offered it for Linux for a while. When did Microsoft jump on board? Maybe Mr. Mastan's statement is just bull too.

Either way, I'm glad to see IBM doing this. Voice recognition enabled programs open's a whole new and exciting frontier for software developer's both on the desktop and in embedded projects.

Re:Either way...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, you're in the completely wrong product division. When people hear "speech recognition", they automatically think of stuff like ViaVoice and DragonDictate. This announcement has _nothing_ to do with software for interfacing with your desktop computer.

They're talking about their voicexml tools. They're open sourcing some tools for developing voicexml-based speech applications that run in a call center somewhere, replacing "press 1 for this, press 2 for that" with "say the name of a city and state, and I'll give you a weather forecast". Customers are generally big enterprises with big call centers, and they're trying to create the appearance of a "standard development methodology" that, in reality, only they support, so they can drive engine sales and services revenue.

Of course, MS is trying to do the same thing. IBM's closer to the mark, because voicexml actually _is_ the predominant standard, whereas MS just made SALT up all by their lonesome and have yet to have any real deployments outside of their own companies and companies they have tremendous sway over.

Re:Obligatory....

[Sipos]

He was joking (or at least flaming in a humerous way). Stop taking life so seriously.

XVoice might get a kickstart again...

[Julz]

If they realease the ViaVoice for Linux stuff again that would make Linux based voice recognition a little more accessible and might help improve it.

Mac updates in the future?

[jkonrad]

Maybe this means someone (anyone, please!) will be able to bring ViaVoice up to date on the Mac, which hasn't been updated for more than a couple years, and with every OS X update becomes more and more broken.

In other news,

[mbstone]

Bill Gates announced today that the source code for Microsoft Bob® and Microsoft Clippy®, valued on Microsoft's books at $175 million, has been donated to the Free Software Foundation, a tax-exempt entity.

Stumped Speechless

[strangedays]

Open speech!, Hip Hip Hooray, but spensive free beer, Oh! wait duh... , hah! free as in an IBM speekeasy speech, IBM fee free beer?, hic, wait its nother speech by free IBM, Yay! FUDless open free the beer speech! hic hic, M'speechless! IBM wobble servlessis! rules, ko, Speech! More beeer, Hic free!.. No one gets fried for buying IBM beer!

No Beer Was Harmed In The Making Of This Drivel.

ViaVoice98 Office Edition#Yah, who is me how?

[tommywho70x]

This is not so much a comment as a request for help. I do not write code; I build PC Networks and overstress software for fun and profit.(Gates Cracks it, Norton Hacks it and I Stack & Whack it."DeFrags-R-Us.ORG-chicago3.net-natural.shs") (Uh, yeah, i've got a few TWAIN32 compliant USB Imaging Devices attached to the SCRAP.DOC Hauler) My "Native LAN" is built on an HP-3COM NIC P-III 650EMHz INTEL 32(whoppers)Win98-NT 4 Workstation with plenty groovy cable and wireless "thin-clients", two phony lines in and 1 wininet SBC Yahoo! DIAL 123 OUT accountant. (bad prodigybiz.net buzz-off indexing blogger) The TERMINATOR I,II,III, ARNOLD IV, CA.GOV.US V Hasta La Vista, Baby! Let's Chat about RECALL Elections. Because of obsolete SWBT Hardware and MSN Switch Politics (for) Entertainment, I am only receiving illegal broadband data packages TCP Inbound and a 26.4Kbps upstream dial connection. Causes lots of problems in the Intranet(Local MACHINE.INF) Zone. Also, because of my skill at training computers to repair their own softwares and protect themselves from Extranet Idiots, the High-Speed Business Class Internet/E-Commerce MSN Partners have my home under surveillance and are raping, pillaging and plundering its resources.(Abbreviated by us victims of genocide to RP&P. Sort of like "Plug-And-Pray" the uber-geek aryan hordes don't notice your ASL Middle-finger salute pinned to the front gate counting frames rushing past it). We are also getting some really strange results from the SpeakPad listening to me talk and all of the Internet garbage MSN-SBC-YAHOO-PRODIGY are pumping down the PIPE into the machine's event receiver.(SBC Yahoo! DIAL 123 SLIP UPS WIN32 more from SCREWUUNET EDU - Stuff that matters - Bend over, grab your cheeks and crack a smile. MopNET ONEAC USA Chloride Power Group, LLC(1)) Are there any Slashdotters out there who know their way around these types of "Techno-Gadget SCAMS,SPAM, VIRUSES and Miscellaneous Malicious Media attacks" that are willing to help us? (me and BIGMAMA1(hp)computer) if yes, please call 512-247-6696 at your earliest convenience to arrange an "Inter-Active - Inter-Operative" live help session. if no, you can call anyway; me and the computer love to record and backtrace crank calls. also, if anybody wants to participate in the multimedia legal circus of the new millenium, you are invited to sign-on as CO-PLAINTIFF in the COMPLAINT (In Composition): IBM PC AND APPLE MAC DOE(S)VS. MICROSOFT CORPORATION ET. AL." to be instantiated into the calendar of the U.S. District Court at Austin, Texas, USA1 World Wide Wierdest CITY JPEG (ASAP)

Re:HTK is NOT availabale as open source

[DMUTPeregrine]

My orgianisation is the Popes of Discordianism. Since every man, woman, and child on Earth is a Pope, I can distribute it to anyone. Since I am a pope, and popes are infallible, this is correct.

Seen in a discount bin

[dbIII]

A serial mouse with a built in microphone. Tempted - but practicality won over sheer geek value.

Re:HTK is NOT availabale as open source

[Anonymous Coward]

Since I am a pope, and popes are infallible, this is correct.

I am a member of the UDA. Fuck the pope!

Re:Obligatory....

[1s1ldur]

Thanks for the support. It was lame, however, but I gota start somewhere.