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SpeechActs Applications
SpeechActs was a research prototype developed
in the Speech Applications Group in the period 1993-1997 that integrated
third-party recognition and synthesis with telephony, natural language
processing capabilities, and other tools for creating speech applications. The
system contained speech interfaces to the applications listed below.
Follow the accompanying links to hear a recorded demonstration of each
application. For these demos, SpeechActs was configured to use
Hark speech recognizer from BBN
and the TruVoice synthesizer (previously from Centigram, now
from Lernout & Hauspie.
See the SpeechActs Architecture page for
more details about the SpeechActs system components.
Login
When a user calls SpeechActs over the telephone, the system tries
to pre-define the user from caller ID information. Once logged in,
the user may begin with any of the applications below.
Login demo (27 seconds audio), formats:
au,
wav,
real-audio,
text
Mail
With the mail application, users can hear their electronic mail messages,
skip forward or backward from one header to the next, fax a message,
replay a message, or initiate a new message. Based on a combination of
user-defined rules and automatically generated rules, a user's mail
file is grouped, sorted, and prioritized. In this way, important
messages are presented first and some messages are not read aloud at
all. Also, the grouping helps users to handle messages in batches
rather than having to deal with each one individually.
Mail demo - part 1 (43 seconds audio), formats:
au,
wav,
real-audio,
text
Calendar demo (45 seconds audio), formats:
au,
wav,
real-audio,
text
Mail demo - part 2 (59 seconds audio), formats:
au,
wav,
real-audio,
text
Faxing demo (43 seconds audio), formats:
au,
wav,
real-audio,
text
Stock Quotes
The stock quotes application provides an interface to a stock
quotation data feed. The user may ask for the prices of selected stocks,
ask about their highs, lows, and volume, or ask for the prices of
stocks in their portfolio (a user defined list of stocks).
Stock Quotes demo (25 seconds audio), formats:
au,
wav,
real-audio,
text
Calendar
The SpeechActs calendar interface allows users to browse their own
calendar as well as the calendars of other users known to the system.
When the user requests information, the application reads them all the
events on a specified day.
Calendar demo (45 seconds audio), formats:
au,
wav,
real-audio,
text
Weather
The weather application provides an interface to the University of Michigan's
on-line Weather Underground forecasts. Users can call up and ask for weather
information for states and major cities around the country.
Weather demo (36 seconds audio), formats:
au,
wav,
real-audio,
text
International Time
With the international time application, users can check the current
time for cities and countries around the world.
Time demo (30 seconds audio), formats:
au,
wav,
real-audio,
text
Currency Exchange
Currency exchange allows users to check the current exchange rates for selected
currencies. It also functions as a currency exchange calculator, allowing
users to convert a specified amount of one currency into any other
of the supported currencies.
Currency demo (1 minute audio), formats:
au,
wav,
real-audio,
text
Notify
Notify allows users to set up and receive reminder telephone calls. For example,
the user can request that SpeechActs deliver a wake-up call and read them the
weather. Users may also record reminder messages that can be played back when the system calls.
Notify demo (1 minute 33 seconds audio), formats:
au
wav,
real-audio,
text
Office Monitor
Unlike the other applications described above, the Office Monitor uses
a microphone for input rather than the telephone. The Office Monitor is
a proof-of-concept project designed to enable members of a work group
or other office visitors to leave quick messages or indicate that they
stopped by. It also makes it easy for office occupants to let others
know their schedule and perhaps their whereabouts. In general, the
Office Monitor is intended to augment the informal, everyday
communication that goes on in a typical office. See the CHI '96 short paper,
"Office Monitor,"
for more details.
Office Monitor setup demo (28 seconds audio), formats:
au
wav,
real-audio,
text
Office Monitor visitor demo (44 seconds audio), formats:
au
wav,
real-audio,
text
Office Monitor return demo (23 seconds audio), formats:
au
wav,
real-audio,
text
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