AT&T ups the ante in speech recognition

From CNET News.com: If you've ever been frustrated using a voice activated customer agent or have scratched your head while reading an unintelligible voice-to-text message, AT&T says help is on the way.

The company, which has invested more than one million research hours over the past 20 years in speech and language recognition technology, says that it's developed technologies that will not only make these traditional voice activated services more accurate but will extend voice activation to other modes of communication.

Earlier this week, AT&T Labs researchers showed off some of the technologies they've been working on at their labs here. Most of the applications showcased are not yet ready for prime-time commercial use. Researchers said they have no idea when these services will find their way into products. But bits and pieces are already in products developed by AT&T and the company's partners.

For decades, AT&T has been at the forefront of speech recognition and natural language technology research. It's developed a core technology platform, known as Watson, which is a cloud-based system of services that not only identifies words but interprets meaning and context to deliver more accurate results. The system itself is built on servers that model and compare speech to recorded voices. Watson is an evolving platform that with more data is able to adapt and learn so that it continues to improve accuracy and also cross reference data to use speech as input for getting to all kinds of communication and data.

"We are really on the cusp of a technology revolution in speech and language technology," said Mazin Gilbert, executive director of speech and language technology at AT&T Labs. "It's no longer about simply trying to get the words right. It's about adding intelligence to interpret what is being said and then using that to apply to other modes of communication, such as text or video."

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