You know what people want? Computers you can talk to. Not some stupid gormless machine you have to crouch over, typing instructions into and giving yourself RSI. But when are we going to get there? Unsurprisingly, there is massive demand for speech enabled computing, as our research shows.


As people become more familiar with mobile computers (AKA phones) the market for the speech recognition technology in mobiles is expected to boom in the next five years. Even in a recession. This industry sector will be so buoyant even Gordon Brown might get a job.
In its report: “Talk to the Hand”, research analyst MobileB2B predicts a global market for speech recognition (SR) in handheld devices (mobiles and notebook PCs) will grow from today’s figures of £32.7 million to around £100 million bythe time of the London Olympics in 2012.
Meanwhile, speech recognition for other machines (like vending machines) will be double that, growing from today’s £60 million turnover to around £200 million by 2012. When millions of tourists come to London for the Olympic games, they’ll be talking to machines, rather than humans, when they try to buy their train fares, event tickets and fizzy drinks. And hopefully getting equally good service,
“By 2012, consumers will be able to enjoy the same depth of conversation with a machine that they do with today’s generation of world class retail costermongers,” says Mark Murphy, the author of the report for Mobileb2b.
Speech can make the conrol of a mobile computer/phone more efficient. Instead of negotiating the device’s operating system with your thumb, you can tell the wretched device what you want and it will do the work for you. A command to speed dial, for example, brings up the appropriate screen.
“It’s time these wretched devices knew who is boss,” says Murphy, “we’re the humans, and they’re the machines. They should dance to our tune, not the other way around. Finally, we’re getting them tamed.”
The jobs of taming mobile devices – by making them able to respond to spken commands, will create employment and huge revenues for the successful developers of applications. The jobs needed include voice-dialling, voice search and voice input.
Voice search involves talking to a device and expeting it to Google off and find what you’re looking for. Voice input is the modern incarnation of dictation, only the machines records your words and converts them into text.
Before speech applications can become mass market, vendors have a major challenge. They need to be able to put the entire application onto a handset. Either hand held computers/mobile phones must become more powerful, or applications need to be edited down to the bone before being embedded, warns Murphy.
When they are ready, the channels to market are your oyster, says Murphy. Online application shops, such as Apple’s iPhone and Nokia’s App e-shopper, could create a viable channel-to-market for small innovative creaters of speech applications.
There’s money to be made, says Murphy. “This could be the biggest gold rush since the invention of the world wide web,” he concludes.