A Conversation with Tom Freeman from Voicebox Technologies

I had a chance to talk to Tom Freeman of Voicebox Technologies last Friday about the latest innovations in voice enabled devices, what it takes to be a speech engineer, and how speech enabled devices will make our life better in the near future. For example, wouldn't it be nice if you could use conversational voice commands to navigate your iPod or XM Satellite radio in your car rather than risking life and limb finding your favorite play list or channels?

Freeman, co-founder and Sr. VP at Voicebox, will be at SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) Convergence 2006 Conference this week in Detroit and at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this coming January.

Listen now (41:51): AAC or MP3

You can also subscribe to our Podcast feed through iTunes. It's available in both AAC and MP3 formats.

One thing I found particularly interesting in this conversation was the challenge Voicebox faces trying to create voice enabled interfaces that are usable for both frequent and infrequent users of their applications. It's similar to the challenge Microsoft faces with Office applications like Word, where they're trying to make things as simple as possible for word processing beginners, yet provide power keys and macros so experienced users can blast through routine tasks. Now translate that to voice where one person may infrequently use a GPS system when traveling to a new location while a sales person or delivery driver would interact with the same device throughout the work day.

Check out the video demos on their web site. Impressive stuff.

Stop back to discuss this podcast in the comments.

Music by Kevin MacLeod

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