Silent Revolution of Speech I/O in Mobile Phones

Not long ago, speech I/O was heralded as the "idealistic" way to interact with mobile phones and the next great technology revolution. Like many of the initial technology leaps in mobile phones, the truth did not live up to anywhere near the expectation. This resulted in inefficient I/O, frustration with the technology and a terrible user experience. The reasons for this are manifold, but the initial limitations can be distilled down to a combination of the unrealistic expectations of end-users, the limited memory and processing capabilities of handsets and the speech I/O technologies themselves.

However, speech I/O is coming back to the handset in a big way. Existing I/O techniques are struggling with reducing handset sizes, increased application complexity and unnavigable menus. Speech I/O has matured in unison with this demand for alternative I/O techniques. A large number of companies, such as VoiceSignal, Nuance and Nokia, have spent the last 10 years developing high-quality solutions that are now capable of offering a good user experience, allowing the user to flatten menu structures, dictate emails/SMS and operate mobile phones handsfree as well as enabling/accentuating existing and new applications. As a result, these technologies help to drive new applications and increased ARPU as well as complementing handsfree driving mandates.

Speech I/O in cellular revolves around three self explanatory technologies: automatic speech recognition (ASR), text-to-speech (TTS) and speech-to-text (STT).

IMS Research Senior Analyst Patrick Connolly said, "Once end users accept that these solutions are unlikely to be 100% accurate, they offer a more efficient way of interacting with a handsets in certain circumstances. In the future, the end user can easily select the best I/O technique for the application at hand, which in many cases will be speech. IMS Research has forecast penetration rates of 40% and above for these technologies in the near future."

"ASR has already seen success in the CDMA space in North America. US Operators have recognised the relative maturity of the technology and the subsequent revenue-generating potential. IMS Research believes that handset vendors will begin to offer speech I/O solution across a variety of handsets. Mobile internet advertising firms, such as AdMob, can also see the long term potential, recently announcing a partnership with VoiceSignal?. "

Posted to the site on 25th June 2007