Hope you had a nice weekend! It’s raining here, and pretty miserable. We’ve been out for awhile due to an issue close, but should be back in action this week. Based on some news from RSS feeds, it looks like the day is getting off to a nice start, news-wise. And yes, that is a picture of William Shatner in his Star Trek days. And yes, this post mentions William Shatner as he relates to voice biometrics.

* BlackBerry announced its new BlackBerry Bold 9000, a new smartphone equipped with 3G capabilities. BlackBerry is one of a line of companies that have beat the new iPhone to the 3G finish line. Apple’s new version of the iPhone is expected to see a release this summer. The Bold phone is, “banking on the … sleek appearance to win over executives and field workers who’ve grown tired of sacrificing style for functionality.” I think that’s PR-speak for, “Please buy this instead of the iPhone. We made it look cooler.” [CRN]

* My favorite British pharmacy, Boots, announced it has chosen Intervoice to develop its natural language self-service application. [TMC]

* Another woman has joined the high ranks in the speech technology field — Susan Almeida will serve as vice president of global services for speech analytics provider CallMiner. You go, girl. [EarthTimes]

* Speech technology for Danish people. Yay! [PR.com]

* Sensory’s BlueGenie Lite = speech synthesis for Bluetooth devices. Todd Mozer, Sensory’s CEO, says in the article: “We’re able to replace all these awkward presses and beeping with speech.” Awkward presses and beeps - GONE. [Wireless Week]

* Every employee’s worst nightmare: Companies’ HR departments using voice biometrics to detect lying about sick days. Don’t ask me what ’skivers’ are; but it’s another funny British word to say. [Birmingham Post]

* Mother’s Day was yesterday, but I just found this article today. It’s about cool presents to buy your mom. My favorite is the ‘SmartShopper’, which uses voice recognition to store grocery lists. Great - groceries! Just what every mom wants to be reminded of on her special day. I’m also imagining the totally awesome possibilities regarding how this device could seriously mess up utterances. [The Sudbury Star]

* When I was growing up, my mom’s idea of enhancing my cognitive abilities was reading to me, and letting me watch PBS. Today? “Smart toys.” Experts say the toys, “contain technological enhancements that enable a child to form dynamic, emotional relationships. Smart toys incorporate microchips, voice recognition and wireless capability so that toy and child can spend quality time together.” This is so incredibly sad. Another ‘Baby Einstein’? I hope not, because it has been proven that ‘Baby Einstein’ does absolutely nothing that would make your child more intelligent. [The Telegraph]

* Umm…apparently William Shatner has an award called ‘William Shatner’s Heartbeat of America’ that he gives away. This year it went to a voice biometrics company. Voice biometrics: the heartbeat of America. [PR Web]

Just when I thought my life was complete, Disney makes a possibly life-changing (for me) announcement. In preparation for the much-hyped and mind-blowingly adorable new Pixar movie, Wall-E, the company will release a line of Wall-E products, including a robot! So what if it’s $190? I can drop that kind of cash for anything that does all this (and includes voice controls)–

With voice activation and a follow-me mode, WALL·E can follow the sound of a human voice and detect someone entering a room. He also has several emotional states and an easy system for programming thousands of combinations of movements with the remote. Numerous sensors allow him to detect and respond to his environment, including infrared sensors that allow him to detect obstacles and steer around them, sonic ears that detect sound direction, and touch sensors.

Can I please get one? Please? In the meantime, follow the jump and watch the Wall-E preview for further explanation of why I’m so excited for this movie. And why everyone at work is going to make fun of me for posting something so sappy. [Source: MakerFaire.com; Image: FirstShowing.net]

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Well, I would, if it hadn’t already passed, and I was Catholic. You may remember my announcement last week that I’m testing a new product and will post my reviews on the ST blog. So, which vendor am I reviewing? Hints: it’s related to mobile, free [I <3 beta], and integrates Web 2.0 into its business plan. The full scoop after the jump!

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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.

Crush: Developers Answering the Call from iPhone
Why We’re Loving It: We hope that of the 100,000 developers who downloaded the iPhone’s SDK will do something speech-related for the product. Though Google’s Android has been met with interest from companies like Nuance Communications, the iPhone’s fate with speech apps remains unclear. We didn’t get any TTS or STT last time, but maybe a group of speech-happy developers will change all that in coming years. Of course, the overwhelming response to the SDK release (those 100,000 downloads took place within just four days of the release) also brought up fears that some of the downloads came from hackers. For more on that, check out this article from eFluxMedia.

Hex: Directory Assistance - Paid, Ad-Based, or Free - You’ve Gotta Step It Up!
Why We’re Hating: After a conversation with a vendor about directory assistance, I was thinking a lot about how often I have been frustrated beyond belief with DA speech recognition errors. Though I prefer free services (I’m 23. I’m poor.), the inefficient, broad search capabilities irritate me beyond belief. But the real problem? Poor speech recognition, and an insane amount of sensitivity to background noise. When do people typically call DA? When they’re outside. Outside conditions in New York are not what you’d call “serene,” to say the least. In addition, people in bigger cities like NYC or LA seem more likely to tap DA: we have more streets, more stores, and five freaking boroughs. As far as ad-based search goes, I haven’t found that quality improves, even with developers’ increased spending capabilities from the ad support ($$$$$). Paid services? No way. It just reminds me of my grandmother dialing information and being connected on a switchboard operated by Lily Tomlin. Developers: people love DA; people need DA; people want DA. Don’t ruin a good thing.

AVIOS had a wine-and-cheese fest in which they announced the winners of their 2007 Application Contest. I’m sure they’ll post detailed information on the site in the coming days.

There were three winners:

Michael Turner studied with Jim Larson at Portland State University. He designed a collection of five children’s games.

Michael Laskowski, also from Portland; I’m not sure if it was Portland State University because my pen slipped into my wine glass as I was writing. So that information is lost forever. He designed a maze game for children with speech impediments. Children maneuvered their avatars through the maze using repeated words. The game reinforced memorization as well.

Also, it delivered a stunning electric shock if a child said the wrong thing.

Kidding.

Finally, Jamey White studied under Juan Gilbert at Auburn University. He designed a training application for pilots.

I conducted two quick interviews with Jamey White and Michael Turner. To read the interviews in full, click on the “More” button.

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The New York Times has an article today about how cars overloaded with portable DVD players and computer keyboards are actually making the roadways considerably more dangerous.

Man. Computers? When I was ten, my parents took me on a thirteen hour roadtrip from California to Utah (Violin camp. Seriously). They played an unabridged audio book of Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire, which was both entertaining and educational.

According to the NY Times, the biggest causes of driver distraction leading to accidents include dialing phone numbers and texting on wireless devices. Of course, now that everyone has a wireless device, there have been a ton of TV spots advertising Ford’s voice-controlled Sync system (which uses Nuance’s speech rec technology).

The article quotes a Ford technical specialist: “Voice interface is sort of the way of the future…Voice dialing is clearly superior to dialing manually.”

Well, great. I wrote a case study about equipping police units with voice controls in the Jan/Feb issue of Speech Tech. Researchers at the University of New Hampshire, who implemented and continue to optimize the project, are also conducting research on how speech recognition influences driving ability. Andrew Kun, an associate professor in UNH’s Electrical and Computer Engineering Department describes the dilemma:

So someone gives you a system with a speech recognizer and you’re now supposed to be able to drive a little more safely. But what if the recognizer isn’t very good or just isn’t performing very well? Will that hinder your ability to drive? If the question is that you now have a second task, which is talking to the computer, and it’s not going well because the computer isn’t understanding you, how much does this influence your primary task? By how, I don’t mean what goes on in your heads, I mean what are the result regarding driver performance.

When I spoke with him, they’d only completed a few WOz tests using extreme cases–44 percent and 88 percent recognition rates. As expected, very low recognition rates hindered driving ability and high recognition rates helped it. I don’t know what Sync’s recognition rate is, but I’m pretty sure it’s higher than 44 percent, otherwise I doubt they’d have deployed it.

As Kun admits, “There are a lot of variables that have to be taken into account.”

One is speech recognition rate, the other is what kind of driving do you do? Is a highway more difficult than city driving? Do you have to use the press-to-talk button? We’re trying to come up with a list of things.