Speech Technology - October 2008 - (Page 44)

JUDITH MARKOWITZ FORWARD THINKING Make Your Life Easier Do your part to develop, certify, and support industry standards on’t stop reading just because you see that this of multiple modalities. All of them also have or plan to article is about standards. include SIV in their offerings. The IETF has added SIV to Did you know that the presence or absence of standards MRCP V2, ISO and ANSI have data exchange projects for affects almost every aspect of your daily life? For example, SIV, and the W3C’s VBWG is looking at ways to include when you travel, you probably need to take separate cables SIV in VoiceXML 3. for each electronic device that travels with you (e.g., cell phone, laptop). Wouldn’t it be much simpler and easier if Make Your Life Easier we could just use a single cable for everything? No matter who you are, you can do a number of things to You might say that this problem has been solved for ensure that standards are completed and address your needs. speech. After all, we have VoiceXML Version 2, Media Engine developers: You can make sure that emerging Resource Control Protocol (MRCP) Version 1, and other standards support features that make your technology standards for automatic speech recognition (ASR) and good. You can do that in a number of ways. For example, text-to-speech (TTS). Certainly, these stanboth ANSI and W3C VBWG are actively dards have made TTS and ASR more attracseeking greater participation from SIV engine Standards tive by making it easier, faster, and cheaper developers in their SIV standards developneed to evolve to integrate those technologies into many ment, so consider joining a standards-develalong with the environments. But if you want to include oping body. You could test draft standards to industries, markets, and something like speaker identification/verifiensure that they support your technology. technologies cation (SIV) in your VoiceXML application, Your contributions will make life much easier they affect. then you must add a “tag” to your applicafor you when the standard is approved and tion that links it to proprietary SIV software. the RFPs require compliance. It sounds simple, but those tags are like having a separate Consultants, integrators, platform providers, and cable for each SIV product. other professionals responsible for application/system We need, therefore, to ensure that standards truly sup- development: You bring hands-on knowledge of the real port the technologies we want to use. world to the table. Your valuable insights can prevent The story doesn’t end there. Standards need to evolve development or approval of standards that favor one engine along with the industries, markets, and technologies they developer or a certain group of vendors. You can test the affect. If they don’t, they will be left behind and we will standard with your environment—with different engines. lose the interoperability and other market-expanding ben- If you like what you see, you can help develop conformance efits they provide. test suites and push engine developers to certify their That’s why the Internet Engineering Technology Forum engines. This will make your life easier by eliminating (IETF) is putting the finishing touches on Version 2 of headaches and extra work tied to not having standards or MRCP, and why the World Wide Web Consortium’s Voice having bad standards. Browser Working Group (W3C VBWG) is crafting a more End users: You can make sure that the standards-develpowerful and flexible version of VoiceXML (VoiceXML opment committees are familiar with and understand your Version 3). It is also why the biometrics committees of the needs. You can participate in the development process and American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and the push vendors and integrators to do so. You can include the International Standards Organization (ISO) are moderniz- standards in the requirements of RFPs and project definiing their standards as well. tions. This will make your life easier by reducing the risks These standards bodies are enhancing their offerings to associated with using proprietary technology. meet the demands of the new marketplace in specific ways. ANSI and ISO are looking at how to migrate their Judith Markowitz, Ph.D., is president of J. Markowitz Consultants and a leading biometric standards from binary to XML coding; ISO and independent analyst in the speech and voice biometrics fields. She can be reached at judith@jmarkowitz.com. W3C VBWG are providing standards that support the use D 44 | Speech Technology OCTOBER 2008 www.speechtechmag.com http://www.speechtechmag.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Speech Technology - October 2008

Speech Technology - October 2008 Contents Editor’s Letter Industry View Inside Outsourcing Interact Keynoter Highlights the Shrinking Technological World Former Hacker Tackles IVR and Biometrics ‘Press 1’ for Caller Thoughts Soundbytes Voice Vote A New Dragon Emerges Overheard/Underheard An Emotional Mess Emotional Intelligence The Case for Call Recording Unified in Care and Communications An Education in E-Learning Guest Column Standards Speech Solutions Voice Value Forward Thinking

Speech Technology - October 2008

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