Speech recognition in Windows Phone 7 OS

Microsoft will use cloud based voice recognition technology in its Windows Phone 7

Photo: Microsoft Windows 7 Series phone

Microsoft has been amping up the hype about its upcoming mobile OS, Windows Phone 7. The latest is that like with Google Android, Windows Phone 7 phones would have cloud based speed recognition capability and natural language processing technology. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, though. We will have to wait and see how well this works. Speech recognition in Android is known to work well.

According to newly released information, Microsoft will be using speech recognition capabilities in Windows Phone 7 that cannot be found on Apple’s iPhone or Google’s Android-based devices. By this initiative, Microsoft hopes to take away a bit of the thunder of Android.

According to Microsoft, they believe that voice is not a separate application, but an integral part of the user experience. At least they are consistent there – the company has been improving its speech recognition in Windows continuously, and the ability is as good as it ever got in Windows 7. Microsoft had previously acquired Tellme Networks in 2007. And now, it will use the Tellme cloud based voice recognition and language processing service to enhance Windows Phone 7 so the phone can understand a voice command.

“When you move to a device that doesn’t have a large keyboard, voice is such a compelling complement to that experience”, said Zig Serafin, general manager of United Microsoft communications.

During the press conference, a demonstration was also given on how a Windows Phone 7 mobile phone could use speech recognition and natural language processing.

Citing an example, the demonstrator commanded the phone running Windows Phone 7 to open an album of pictures. Immediately, a picture view application popped up on the screen, which showed not only pictures taken by the user, but also pictures taken by the user’s friends that were posted on social networking sites. Similarly, when asked for a list of nearby Chinese restaurants, the phone gave the exact location of restaurants on a map. Impressive stuff, if everything works that way.

The promise by Microsoft is that voice recognition technology will be so well integrated into the phone that that it would not be restricted to just a few applications. So, a user should be able to control his entire phone using voice commands. Calling contacts in the address book, opening applications or searching the internet – all should be possible for a Windows Phone 7 user using voice commands.

Windows Phone 7 is expected to launch in October-November 2010 in US and Europe. How the smartphone markets reacts to Windows Phone 7 is critically important to Microsoft. The company has been a laggard in the exploding mobile computing market, allowing a free run to Apple’s iOS and then Android. Initial response to Windows Phone 7 have been cautious approval. If Microsoft actually manages to integrate usable speech recognition into the new mobile OS, then may have something to talk about instead of playing an also-ran to iPhone and Android.