The mobile news will not stop! Today, news hit the Web that a 3G iPhone will likely be released this summer. A Bank of America analyst made the prediction: a small build of 3 million phones in May, followed by 8 million phones in June. The release of the 3G phones, which will come equipped with apps from the iPhone SDK (the beta with UI tools was released last week), could also coincide with (finally) speech on the iPhone. According that same report, Apple expects to sell 10 million 3G iPhones — analysts think this is wishful thinking; I tend to disagree. Why? Because everyone I know who owns an iPhone is my age (23), has a job paying less than $40K per year, and is willing to pay lots of money to have the newest Apple product. You can’t argue with the power of Apple Cult.

[Image courtesy of Station-A]

Next week, I’ll be a test dummy for a new speech product. I can’t give any more details, but the product is related to … phones. I’ll be reporting back with my opinion on Tuesday, and keep you updated throughout the week. This company has a cool concept, but other than that, my lips are sealed! Have a great weekend :]

[Photo: BradReese.com]

***Update: I got someone from TellMe on the phone. Read about their involvement with the iPhone here.***

Sure, March is the holy month for college basketball (FYI - Ryan is a UCLA fan; I’m an MSU girl), but here at Speech Tech, it’s Mobile Month. Even more news today! The sci/tech feeds at Google News are abuzz with stories about Microsoft partaking in the iPhone’s SDK. No big surprise — Microsoft would be silly not to want a stake in the Apple mobility space (and who doesn’t desperately want Excel spreadsheets at all times?). Though most stories report on the integration of the Office suite into the iPhone, a speech tech company, TellMe, is also rumored to be part of Microsoft’s iPhone app projects.

According to a PCWorld blog post, TellMe’s technology could be integrated into iPhone apps –

“Another group at Microsoft interested in the iPhone is from the voice recognition unit at Microsoft featuring the TellMe software that Microsoft recently acquired. TellMe is currently developing voice recognition software for the Windows Mobile operating system, but the iPhone SDK gives plenty of potential for the iPhone route as well.”

Woohoo! Not only is Nuance still on board with Android, but now we may see speech in the iPhone, as well. This also means we have more fuel for news on this here blog — it gives Ryan something to do aside from give us real-time updates about the Sweet 16. Of course, this is all still a gamble. Microsoft has apparently only been looking at the SDK for a few weeks, according to the same PCWorld blog post. Keep your fingers crossed, speech community.

[Photo illustration courtesy of our own Ryan Joe]

Yes, we’re crushing on the mobile market…unless your name is Motorola. As you might have heard, in 2009 Motorola will RAZR off (sorry, couldn’t resist) its money-hemorrhaging mobile devices group. From what I’ve been reading, Moto execs rode the RAZR’s success as a fashion accessory at the expense of furthering innovation.

Gizmodo published today a pretty pissed-off letter to Motorola CEO Greg Brown from Numair Faraz, former adviser to ex Motorola CMO Geoffrey Frost. The exact ins-and-outs of why the Motorola handset division failed isn’t within the purview of Speech Technology Magazine, however Faraz says something interesting towards the end of his missive:

Understand that the next big feature in handsets isn’t a camera or a music player — it is social connectedness; build expertise in this area, and sell it down the entire value chain.

This is consistent with what Nuance Mobile’s VP Mike Thompson told me: “The interesting expansion point is that not only are command and control of the device important, what’s emerging as a fast-growing trend is connectivity to the mobile internet…”

What role does voice have in all this? Well, you need the right applications to attain this sort of connectivity and, given the nature of mobility, it’s likely that those apps will require multimodal interfaces. GUI is a big limitation if you’re navigating rush-hour traffic. Speech rec, according to Daniel Hong in today’s news story, is essentially an “enabler” for these important mobile applications.

It’s time for another edition of the Speech Tech blog’s regular feature, “Crushes & Hexes.” Appearing every Wednesday, we highlight companies, places, technologies, or people we deem praise-worthy, or cringe-inducing within the speech/tech/IT world. As always, your feedback is appreciated! Email us at blog@speechtechblog.com if you have a crush or hex item you’d like to see online.

Crush: Speech Technology in the Mobile Market
Why We’re Loving It: After a few days of uncertainty regarding Nuance and Android, we got a definitive answer yesterday from Mike Thompson at Nuance (see yesterday’s post). The verdict: “We’re actively participating,” Thompson says. Cha-ching! In other Nuance news, the company announced it had signed a multiyear deal with Samsung to incorporate its speech recognition technologies into Samsung mobile phones. But one of the biggest news items was SpinVox’s $200 million-announcement: the company received that much in fundraising rounds with investors like Goldman Sachs. After an impressive showing at the Mobile World Conference in Barcelona, SpinVox has really been hitting it big-time, and with the $200 million, they’ll be doubling the number of mobile providers carrying its voicemail-to-text technology, as well as investing in an Advanced Speech Group in Cambridge.

Hex: Vishing - Giving VoIP and Contact Centers a Bad Name
Why We’re Hating: Following VoiceCon, I kept in touch with Krishna Kurapati, president of voice and information security company Sipera Systems. He sent me a brief email yesterday about “vishing,” or the use of VoIP/Internet phones to trick callers into thinking they’re getting in touch with a call center, when in fact their personal information is being poached by fraudsters. I’m too young to remember, but my mom tells me that people were hesitant to use ATMs when they first hit the scene — I worry that, because VoIP is still relatively new to the call center, that this will make people not afraid of speaking with their company, but also help them learn more about identity protection. In a February 2008 article in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, writer Teresa Mcusic put it this way:

These so-called “vishing” attempts are on the increase because costs are going down for international phone calls, thanks to Internet phones, and identity-theft call centers are popping up all around the world targeting the U.S.

[Photos courtesy Wikipedia & SecureComputing.com]

We had the following comment attached to a previous post:

Re Android: Google seem to have quietly removed the speech.recognition package from the Android API. I say quietly: the removal is noted in the API Diff specification for M3-RC37a to M5-RC14, released 15th Feb, but I haven’t been able to find any more public announcements - for example, it wasn’t mentioned in the m5-rc-14 release announcement.

Google have also not responded to a couple of queries about android.speech.recognition on the android-developers mailing list.

I was also very interested when Android was launched last November, especially with the involvement of Nuance, and the prospect of an accessible speech tech API. However, the speech tech parts of the Android API were never made available and now they’ve been removed. It’ll be interesting to see what the iPhone has to offer.

I had Mike Thompson, vice president and general manager of Nuance Mobile on the line yesterday so I asked him if indeed the speech recognition package had been dropped.

The Nuance response, from Mike Thompson:

No that’s not true. The outlook is just as positive as it has been all along. We’re actively participating. The exact release cycle of their SDK, what’s included and what’s not, why things get included and why things don’t, I don’t know all the details of that but things are very positive on that front and marching in the same strategic direction they were.

If there’s more to report, I will.

Whoa. Remember when IBM promised they would spend $100 million on UC software? Well today, British voicemail-to-text provider SpinVox got news that they raised $100 million in funding from Goldman Sachs and other investors. According to an article from CNet.com, this $100 million is only part of the company’s funding — so far they have raised $200 million total, including this latest round.

SpinVox says it plans to increase the number of countries and languages serviced by its VTT software, as well as form more partnerships with companies like Skype, and other mobile providers. What does all this mean for the company’s long-term future? Well, according to that same article, SpinVox’s CEO, Christina Domecq, “isn’t looking for a buyout or an IPO, but is keeping her options open.” Indeed.

Good news for both speech recognition and virtual gun enthusiasts: “Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas 2″ will be released this week. The game, according to a Gamepro.com review, casts players as a “highly trained anti-terrorist specialist who roams around with his squadmates, picking off evildoers with an impressive array of firepower.” Sounds like a typical day at the Speech Tech offices. Fonix provides the speech technology that fuels the game’s voice command system — one of a handful of companies involved in the gaming vertical market. And, according to the same review, the game is supposed to be quite excellent — it has garnered a bunch of praise within the gaming world. Go Fonix!

For more on the speech technology & gaming marketplace, check out Ryan’s Market Spotlight article on the gaming industry from our March 2008 issue.

Back in New York! Totally forgot that flights from Orlando are always 70%-occupied by small children and screaming babies. The whole flight was like a big tribal gathering, complete with shouting and the sounds of kids playing with their newest toys. Yeah. I’m glad to be back in New York. So, let’s get rolling on what was arguably the biggest presentation at VoiceCon. Cisco wrangled in Al Gore to participate in a live meeting with other panelists via Cisco’s TelePresence product. What is TelePresence? It’s a fancy word for videoconferencing! Gore was in Nashville, Cisco president & CEO John Chamber was in California, and there was also a British reporter in London involved. Each of these panelists was projected on to a TV set in the VoiceCon keynote room. Three big talking heads in one room! It was hard to contain my joy.

All criticism aside, Cisco gets major props for doing something the other keynotes didn’t — they not only showed how their technology worked, but tied it in to their presentation’s title, “Climate Change and Technology Innovation.” Rather than fly all three panelists in to Orlando, they saved major bad-carbon by using TelePresence to conduct the panel. The picture was extremely clear, never broke up, and it was easy to hear everyone. A little piece of my cold, black heart melted. The company’s main point: using videoconferencing not only saves travel expenses, but allows a company to use technology as part of a green initiative. Nevermind the fact that one session I attended said videoconferencing creates the “appearance” that your company has a green program (the “appearance” — surely you can do better than that).

So, major ups to Cisco’s Sue Bostrom for being one of the most well-spoken presenters at VoiceCon - she was also the ONLY female keynote speaker - and gave a clear speech without sounding like a well-trained robot. You go, girl. An illustrated wrap-up follows after the jump!

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Greetings from the Orlando Airport! I’m wearing black clothing (anticipating cold NYC weather), but 99 percent of the people here are dressed like they just stepped out of Epcot. Also, lots of fanny packs. Anyhow, VoiceCon ended today. Though I wanted to live-blog every day, I was unable to do so for a few reasons: my MacBook was set on “better performance” and my battery kept dying; the conference’s free WiFi network always gave me only ONE BAR during sessions and keynotes; and I was busy every day from 730 am - 830 pm (usually, the people at VoiceCon looked at me like I was insane for staying that late, and kicked me out). So, yes — mini-traumas aside, I enjoyed the conference.

Usually, I’m holed up in the Speech Tech, sucked into the world of ASR, IVR, TTS, STT, ACD, and VUI. This time, I got to check out some UC solutions that will have a real impact on the contact center space. The biggest issues in UC/VoIP? Interoperability, integration, tons of “strategic partnerships.” I was reminded of Forrester analyst Brian Haven’s keynote speech at Nuance Conversations at several VoiceCon keynotes. The message from both speeches was the same: companies need to wise up to their changing consumer and employee demographics — and, with a plethora of information available at one’s fingertips, the enterprise must adapt and embrace the changing nature of business relations. This extends past presence and UC/UM sessions; it also penetrates the contact center and overall IT infrastructure. Head geeks, unite — VoiceCon was all about you. Read on for some of my favorite sessions’ highlights…

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