Talk to Your PC With One Voice 
Voice Interactive Technology combines artificial intelligence and voice
recognition to let you chat with your PC. 

by Liane Gouthro, PC World 
October 4, 1999, 12:01 a.m. PT 

Using a combination of artificial intelligence and spoken language,
Intelligent Voice Interactive Technology from One Voice Technologies lets
people talk to their computers to navigate through their desktops and the
Internet using everyday speech.  

IVIT was developed for home consumer use. But you'll first find the
technology in bundled offerings from PC vendors, Internet service providers,
and Web content providers. The product is scheduled to be available by year's
end, and in retail outlets in 2000, ranging in price from $49 to $79. 

The user interacts with IVIT through an animated agent, an image that appears
on their desktop. The agent could appear in the form of an animated computer
chip, a genie, or a wizard. 

You can speak to the agent just as you would to a co-worker or friend, using
free form thoughts. The combination of artificial intelligence and
voice-recognition technology enables the agent to overcome speech recognition
errors and interpret natural language.  

Freeform Conversation 

The agent is not restricted by a list of predefined words and phrases, or
simplified command and control terms.  

For example, if you want to know the weather, you are not restricted to
saying something like "Show me the weather." Instead, you could say, "Will it
rain today?" and your agent might reply, "There is no rain forecast for
today," while popping up a Web site that shows today's weather forecast. Each
user enters a profile when installing the program, so the agent knows your
local area. 

If the agent does not understand your request, it will request clarification.
For example, if you are working in a Word document and you say, "Find me a
hotel in Boston," it might ask, "Do you mean, search the Internet?" to
differentiate from the document in use. When you say yes, it will conduct the
search. 

IVIT may also ask you to narrow down or expand upon your search, depending on
the amount of results it finds. 

IVIT generally takes about ten minutes to become accustomed to a user's
voice, notes Dean Weber, One Voice Technologies chairman and chief executive
officer. Because this technology can ask you to clarify your statements, IVIT
does not require a long training period, according to Weber.  

In addition to the user features, IVIT also provides tools for Web site
designers. The package includes a scripting tool so site designers can create
voice prompts and responses to spoken user requests.  

Merlin can guide IVIT users through these voice-enabled sites, by describing
the available features. The scripting tool does not modify a site's HTML, but
instead creates a separate voice map of the site.  

http://www.onevoicetech.com/
 
-------------------

Talk your way to the Web
From PC Week - October 4, 1999 - page 9

One Voice Technologies plans to announce at Internet World this week an
intelligent interactive language technology that lets people talk with their
PCs and navigate the Web using natural speech. 

One Voice's Intelligent Voice Interactive Technology understands advanced
linguistic concepts such as topics, subjects and synonyms, so users are not
restricted to predefined words and phrases. 

IVIT speaks to users through animated characters that ask intelligent
questions and read back results aloud. IVIT also asks users questions to
clarify their requests. 

One Voice's first product, Intelligent Voice Animated Navigator, will be
available as a free download at http://www.onevoicetech.com later this year. 

It will also retail for $49 without dictation and $79 with dictation in
January.


Caption: IVIT's star, "Chip."