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IBM open-sources speech code

IBM is donating some of its software for speech-enabling applications to two open-source organizations: the Apache Software Foundation and the Eclipse Foundation. Big Blue announced its plans at last week's SpeechTEK 2004 Conference to "spur the availability of speech-enabled applications by making it easier and more attractive for developers to build and add speech recognition capability in a standardized way."

To the Apache group, IBM is donating Reusable Dialog Components (RDCs), which are JSP tags developed by IBM Research. The RDCs enable dynamic development of voice applications and multimodal user interfaces. "Multimodal" refers to applications that provide users with a choice of input sources, generally including voice, keypad, keyboard, mouse and stylus. Output takes the form of spoken prompts, audio and/or graphical displays. JSPs that incorporate RDC tags automatically generate W3C VoiceXML 2.0 at runtime, providing a standard basis for speech applications.

To Eclipse, IBM is donating speech mark-up editors designed to make it easier for developers to write standards-based speech applications, and to create and utilize RDCs within those applications. The Eclipse donation is actually part of the initial formation of a project for open-source tools for voice application development, which will involve several other companies in the VoiceXML community, the company says.

The two donations combined are valued at $10 million, an IBM spokesperson says.

Some of the companies joining IBM in this open-source initiative include AT&T, Avaya, Cisco, Genesys, Motorola, Nortel, ScanSoft, Siebel and Voice Partners.

Source:Big Blue open-sources speech code- ADTmag.com