speech @ microsoft

Sample Source Code for Speech Developers Part 2 and SAPI 5.4

mplumpe — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 18:02:00 GMT

Developers interested in using speech technologies in their applications have been downloading the Windows SDK, but not everyone has been able to find our sample code after installation. If you’ve installed the latest Windows SDK, you’ll find the speech samples under “C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0\Samples\winui\speech”. Of course, if you didn’t use the default installation location or your root drive isn’t C: you’ll need to adjust for that.

Note that the Microsoft Windows SDK for Windows 7 supports SAPI 5.4. The 5.4 version of the Speech API is largely the same as 5.3, but to see what‘s new go to the Speech Technologies node on MSDN and follow the SAPI 5.4 link.

Microsoft Exchange 2010 Voicemail Preview well positioned with competitors

Rob Chambers — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 18:42:00 GMT

Interesting new study on the effectiveness of speech-to-text technologies. Nice to see Microsoft beating Google Voice with the Exchange 2010 Voicemail Preview. Interestingly, I think users will see improvements in their experiences with Voicemail Preview since we are using advanced machine learning techniques that augment its vocabulary with names and words that are individually tailored to each user based on their use of Exchange. A summary of the study is below.

Commissioned by Ditech and carried out by William Meisel of TMA Associates, the study looked at the accuracy of 500 messages converted from voice to text.

Automated Voice-to-Text Accuracy:

PhoneTag: 86%
Microsoft: 84%
Google: 82%>
Yap: 78%

Happy 2010

Rob Chambers — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 17:51:20 GMT

Happy 2010, folks!

The end of last year brought some very interesting developments in the speech space.

Bing - We saw the introduction of Bing for mobile, a killer mobile search application that allows you to use your voice to search for what you want. This feature is powered by Microsoft’s speech recognition engine, and I’m happy to see folks using Bing for mobile across all types of phones—Windows Phones, Blackberrys, and the iPhone.
Exchange 2010 - We also saw the introduction of the latest and greatest version of Exchange Server. Exchange 2010 sports a brand new feature for people on the go: Voice Mail Preview. Essentially, the feature records your voice mail in your unified inbox, and provides you with a text preview of what the caller likely said. That way, you don't even have to listen to the voice message.
Windows 7 - In addition to all the coolness of Windows 7 you've probably already heard about like Touch, Aero Peek, etc ... Windows 7 also has a ton of speech features built-in, many of which are new. Features like: better accuracy, faster performance, support for array microphones out of the box, and better integration with even more applications.
Kia UVO - Capping off a crazy week of all things speech at CES was the announcement of KIA’s new UVO (“Your Voice”), which takes advantage of the latest speech technologies from Microsoft, allowing you to get directions and control your music using the power of your voice. An overview of UVO can be found here.

I think these new products and services from Microsoft are just the start of a new wave of experiences that will be speech-enabled, from mobile devices, to server products, to desktop and embedded use cases. And ... it won’t just be speech. In many cases, these technologies will take advantage of more natural ways to interface with technology. These interfaces will include speech and things like touch and gesture. We call these new interfaces the natural user interface, or NUI.

Judging by recent developments in the industry, including those showcased at the 2010 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) happening right now in Las Vegas, 2010 is going to be a year in which speech really goes mainstream. At CES, we have seen good deal of focus on NUI, and our executives are talking about speech constantly:

Steve Ballmer talked about NUI quite a bit in his keynote at CES this week (check it out here)
Zig Serafin sat down with Microsoft’s PressPass this week and discussed what role speech plays in Microsoft’s NUI strategy (check it out here).
Robbie Bach, in addition to his CES keynote presentation, also talked about Project Natal and what NUI means to Microsoft and to the consumer (check it out here)

So ... What’s next for speech and for NUI? Well, you’re going to have to wait and see... :-)

But if the last year is any indication, 2010 is going to be a breakthrough year for speech.

New top level MSDN node for Speech

Rob Chambers — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 22:28:00 GMT

Check it out here! Now you can go to one location on MSDN to get any docs you need for your speech application needs...

Use Tellme Studio to create voice applications

Rob Chambers — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 18:00:00 GMT

Tobin Coziahr, from Tellme, has been kind enough to write a post describing how you can use the Tellme VoiceXML studio environment to build prototype voice applications. Thanks Tobin!

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Tellme, a Microsoft subsidiary, has a fully featured VoiceXML studio environment that allows anyone to learn how to make voice applications powered by the Tellme platform, for free.

Head over to the getting started section to hear examples of functioning voice applications, and try out the VoiceXML scratchpad, which allows you to write your own VXML, and then immediately call an access number and try it out. There’s a great code library for you to look at tutorials and sample code, as well.

There’s even a Visual Studio 2008 plugin that gives you a powerful GUI interface to design and develop voice applications using Microsoft’s Visual Studio Domain Specific Language toolkit.

Tobin Coziahr

Senior Software Design Engineer

Technical Preview of the Windows Speech Recognition Profile tool is now available for download!

Rob Chambers — Wed, 27 May 2009 03:00:20 GMT

It's an exciting time here in Redmond, as we're finally ready to release the CTP (Client Technical Preview) of the Windows Speech Recognition Profile tool (WSRProfile for short). WSRProfile allows you to backup and restore your speech profile. It's fast, and it's easy. You can download WSRProfile here.

Be sure to download the release notes as they contain useful information as well as user instructions. Please note that this is a "technical preview" version and as such there are a few known issues with the tool.

As always, we welcome any and all feedback at listen@microsoft.com.

Microsoft sponsors the 2009-2010 AVIOS Speech Application Programming Contest

Rob Chambers — Mon, 11 May 2009 17:49:28 GMT

As we have for the past 2 years, Microsoft is once again proud to announce our sponsorship of the 2009-2010 AVIOS Speech Application Programming Contest. Last year, winners of the contest received some pretty cool prizes from Microsoft, like copies of Visual Studio Professional, XBOX 360s, and Zunes... That's in addition to being flown out to San Diego for the Awards Ceremony at the Voice Search 2009 Conference. This year, Microsoft's offering similar prizes for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd prize.

Do you have what it takes to win the 2009-2010 Contest? If you think you do, check out the official rules and how to use Microsoft Speech offerings here.

Windows Speech Recognition Macros v1.0 is now official!

Rob Chambers — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 01:02:00 GMT

Here’s a quick note to let you know that WSR Macros v1.0 is now officially available for download here.

Notable new features:

Improved UI for creating, editing, and signing WSR Macros
New UI for creating/editing WSR Macros directly in XML

Check out the download page above.

Questions? Comments? Send us email here.

Response Point wins InfoWorld 2009 Technology of the Year Award!

Rob Chambers — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 18:53:49 GMT

Congratulations to the Response Point team for winning one of the InfoWorld 2009 Technology of the Year Awards!

Microsoft overall won 4 out of 40 awards announced earlier this week:

Response Point won Best Small Office VoIP System.
Small Business Server 2008 won Best Small Business Server
Visual Studio 2008 won Best Integrated Development Environment
Silverlight 2 won Best Rich Internet Application Platform

Congrats to the Response Point team and to all the teams at Microsoft for the 4 wins...

WA State Deploys Microsoft Audio Indexing Solution

Rob Chambers — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 19:23:26 GMT

I just posted this over on my blog, but I thought it was cool enough to put directly on the Speech team blog as well.

It’s official. Microsoft’s audio indexing solution (born out of Microsoft Research) is now online as a part of a Washington State pilot program aimed at making audio recordings from 1973 to present available to the public, with an easy to use search interface.

You can read more about it here or you can just play with it here. You can read the official press release here.

I just tried it out, and it worked great!

I love seeing the technology transfer from research to product groups, and research using existing technology off the shelf from the product groups.

Nice job Microsoft Research. Nice job Speech team.