Talking browsers introduced to ease business
Talking browsers introduced to ease business
Accessing the web in the car, at the shop, or even in the street on the way to an important meeting, will soon be a reality for office workers thanks to the development of voice browsing software designed for businesses.
As people become less dependent on using desktops at work to access important work information, and begin to rely more on PDAs and mobile phones, voice browsing software is the natural step towards making it easier to browse the net whilst on the go.
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has published new recommendations aimed at enabling voice browsing through speech recognition and synthesis for the web.
Dr Hoylen Sue, technical manager for the Australian W3C office, explained how the system works. "Imagine being able to drive your car, and also be able to talk to your browser device and ask it to search a site for you. For instance, you could ask it to search the yellow pages to find a business address in Melbourne, if you were on your way there. It would report back and tell you the details you were looking for.
"A few vendors are using the software at the moment, but we don't expect it to catch on properly for quite a while. We are just waiting for all the vendors to incorporate it into their systems. It's natural next stage forward.
"It will definitely enhance the way people do e-business because, they will not be restricted to just using a desktop and a keypad to do their work. It will create better accessibility and convenience, just like finding out information through having a conversation. It will also provide better accessibility for blind people too"
Voice browsing expert, Dr. Max Froumentin, will be visiting Australia in May to deliver two free seminars about the evolution of voice browsing on the web. Click here to find out more.
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