The Power of Speech

In the multimedia world of future communications, speech will play an increasingly important role. From speaker verification to automatic speech recognition and the understanding of key phrases by computers, the spoken word will replace keyboards and pointing devices like the mouse. In his Perspective, [Rabiner][1] discusses recent advances and remaining challenges in the processing of speech by communication devices. The key challenge is to make the user interface for 21st-century services and devices as easy to learn and use as a telephone is today for voice conversations. [1]: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/301/5639/1494