Richard Sprague WebLog : September 2006

September 2006 - Posts

It's not Ra-sheed!: Speaking of mispronunciations , Rick Rashid, senior VP of Microsoft Research, is justifiable proud of the recent 15th anniversary of our labs. But why does the media quote him and then mispronounce his name ? Rick, who grew up in Iowa, is a totally normal, Read More...
Posted 28 September 06 07:36 by sprague | 1 Comments
Nokia: Knock-ia or Know-kia?: One more thing about the company meeting: two separate executives pronounced the Finnish phone maker like "knock-ia". I've always thought it was "know-kia". One of the execs, Pieter Knook, is European, so I assumed that was some European pronunciation. Read More...
Posted 22 September 06 10:11 by sprague | 5 Comments
Interspeech and the Company Meeting: Chuck Opperman is back from Pittsburgh , where he was doing some Vista demos to attendees at Interspeech . I was at the one in Lisbon last year but I'm not nearly academic enough to make this a regular trip, the way our friends from MSR do. Instead, I Read More...
Posted 22 September 06 07:19 by sprague | 3 Comments
Speech team bloggers: We finally had a face-to-face get-together of the Microsoft speech team bloggers. It was just an informal lunch, a way for us to talk about our experiences, the tools we use, and all those things we think about while blogging but rarely get a chance to Read More...
Posted 21 September 06 07:02 by sprague | 3 Comments
Silent speech recognition: DoCoMo, the Japanese mobile phone company, has a project for doing what they call " mime speech recognition ". You move your throat and face muscles in the way you do while speaking, only you don't project any air, so you are effectively silent. TRN had Read More...
Posted 19 September 06 12:00 by sprague | 2 Comments
Windows Vista marketing sites: The Windows marketing team is starting to push out some of their Vista materials, including one called " SeeWindowsVista ". Another one, targeted for Vista developrs is on MSDN . Read More...
Posted 18 September 06 11:26 by sprague | 2 Comments
Microsoft Genuine Software: Bill Poser was my teacher, Japanese expert, and computer geek at Stanford many years ago, and he is now a contributor to Language Log, a wonderful linguistics blog. His latest entry questions Microsoft's use of the word "genuine" to distinguish stolen Read More...
Posted 15 September 06 11:26 by sprague | 1 Comments
How much do you spend at Starbucks?: We're trying to get a whole bunch of people to send us audio files for a new project we want to do. So we're thinking of a contest where the winners (a bunch of them) get rewarded with a Starbucks card. But how much should the card be? Obviously everyone Read More...
Posted 13 September 06 06:45 by sprague | 2 Comments
TTS in Internet advertising: While browsing on Technorati the other day, I was interrupted by one of those annoying audio ads, but this time I paid attention because it was talking to me. Apparently the company Oddcast wants to sell you some technology that will attach TTS-driven Read More...
Posted 12 September 06 06:57 by sprague | 1 Comments
Speech in the WSJ: This morning's Wall Street Journal has a report about ways cell phone companies try to get you to use more of their features. There are short mentions of Voicebox and PrompTu, plus a nice blurb about Windows Mobile and Voice Command. We are so close to Read More...
Posted 11 September 06 07:09 by sprague | 0 Comments
Capresso vs. Barrista: Robert Stewart, over at WombatNation is a speech blogger who recently ran into trouble with his Capresso2000 super-duper automatic espresso machine. I've been using a relatively simple Barrista maker my wife bought me from Starbucks about five years ago, Read More...
Posted 10 September 06 08:10 by sprague | 1 Comments
Get the Windows SDK: Software development on Windows used to mean two SDKs: the Platform SDK and the .Net Framework SDK. Now they're combined into the Windows SDK, and you can find the latest download information here . Since this is also the way to get the Managed Speech Read More...
Posted 07 September 06 04:21 by sprague | 0 Comments
Get your copy of Vista RC1: I'm using Vista RC1 on my main machine and it's working great. I would never go back. I even have SR configured to go through my TabletPC's array mic and have been using it for quick-and-dirty demos with no problems. It just works! Get a free copy of Read More...
Posted 07 September 06 06:50 by sprague | 1 Comments
Don't talk dirty to MobileVoiceControl: This new Blackberry software (reported by WashPost and CNet ) from MobileVoiceControl sounds pretty cool. Subscribe on your Sprint NextTel phone (like the Treo 700p) and not only can you do most of what you get with Windows Mobile Voice Command , you Read More...
Posted 05 September 06 05:23 by sprague | 0 Comments
Don't talk to a computer: There are several ways to talk to a human customer service rep, and now I found another one: Bringo ! You give them your phone number and they'll call you back when they've got a human on the line. Frankly, I'm not sure I understand the fuss. I'll take Read More...
Posted 04 September 06 07:47 by sprague | 2 Comments
Let Every Breath: I had lunch yesterday with Scott Meredith, who among other things is a really smart TTS guy who moved to Microsoft from Apple many years ago. He's also a serious martial arts student and recently wrote Let Every Breath , a book about something called Read More...
Posted 02 September 06 06:52 by sprague | 0 Comments
Respecting the Almighty: I found a speech bug the other day. Speak the sentence "Thanks be to God". Oops, we don't capitalize 'God'! Is that disrepectful, or what? Now say, "Thanks be to Allah". Try saying other words for the Almighty: Jehovah, Yahweh, Krishna. Our original training Read More...
Posted 01 September 06 06:19 by sprague | 2 Comments

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