Title: An Examination of three Classes of ASR Dialogue Systems: PC-based Dictation, In-car Systems and Automated Directory Assistance

Abstract: Three classes of practical speech recognition dialogue systems are considered, starting with PC-based systems, specifically dictation systems. Although such systems have become very effective, they have not achieved mainstream use. Some reasons for this disappointing outcome are proposed. Speech recognition is now appearing in production cars. It is argued that the two most attractive in-car applications are for navigation systems and for dialing by name. The latter may be more suited to equipment that can be detached from the car and connected to a PC. After considering telephone applications in general, the importance of automated DA (directory assistance - also called directory enquiries or DQ in some countries) is established and its particular challenges are discussed. Among these are the size and dynamic nature of the databases accessed, and the variations produced by callers in naming a commercial/administrative entity whose number they are seeking. The advantages of a bottom-up phonetic speech recognition technique for automated DA are described. It is concluded that the combination of this technique and automatic methods for handling name variation makes automated DA, including access to business listings, a practical proposition.

Curriculum: Melvyn Hunt received a doctorate in physics from Oxford University in 1974, and has since worked continuously in speech technology research in the UK and Canada, including a period at BNR (Nortel) managing telephone speech recognition research and at the National Research Council developing speech recognition in aircraft. He was also an adjunct professor at the University of Ottawa. In 1989 Dr Hunt returned to the UK, where he became Chief Scientist for Marconi Speech & Information Systems. In 1992 in partnership with John Bridle he founded the UK R&D subsidiary of Dragon Systems. In addition to involvement in dictation systems, Dragon UK developed speech recognition technology now used in production cars. Dr Hunt has served as an expert adviser on speech technology to the European Commission (DGX111), as a member of the IEEE Speech Technical Committee, and of the Editorial Advisory Board of Speech Communication. He is an Honorary Fellow in the Department of Linguistics and Phonetics at University College London. Since April 2001 he has been Joint Managing Director (still with John Bridle) of Phonetic Systems UK Ltd. Phonetic Systems develops products for access by voice over the telephone to very large databases, such as telephone directories.

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