Speech Recognition Software: From Science Fiction To Life

Voice recognition which is a common term for "Speech Recognition" has been one of the Hollywood fantasies that came to life. It has been incorporated in control panels of space ships in science fiction films or that action fantasy flick of a talking black car. All of these are associated with a computer being shoved unto the panel. Computers are the best vessels for the speech recognition facilities since it has the capacity and the processing power to do the job well.

Since computers are somewhat embedded in our lives, we can encounter it almost everywhere and anywhere. It has been incorporated inside global positioning systems in cars that the drivers will be guided accordingly on their route. Even cellular phones have applied the technology to their units that calling can be done by voice dialing.

Speech recognition has been realized by computer hardware developers to be another breakthrough in computers just as what the keyboard and the mouse did. It is considered as a part of the Input/Output devices that the computer accepts data from.

For the able and disable, speech recognition has gone through a long way to perfect its system that it can be incorporated for our convenience in day to day living. It has even crossed to the to business applications of the transcription and dictation field.

The speech recognition software industry is still at a young age and is constantly developing ways to perfect the system. As of now the industry is still hung up on homonyms (words that are pronounced in the same manner but different in spelling) which the computer cannot determine on which word is really meant for. There is also a problem with punctuation marks such as periods, semi-columns, commas and hyphens.

Another handicap for speech recognition software is people who are accented speakers or people with speaking deficiency problems. But continuous practice with the software can really help improve the communication between the computer and the user. Software for speech recognition tends to work 98% of the time on non-accented worldwide English.

It may not be far when homes will be equipped with television sets, stereos, microwave and even coffee makers that can recognize speech and accepts commands and functions through it. Perhaps, an interactive refrigerator that can tell you what will be the expected menu for the day amongst the items inside. For what is far off today may not be too distant for science to develop and pack it in our lives just like the mobile phone.