Shih-Hao Liao MSc Dissertation 2014/15

Awareness and Usage of Speech Technology

Supervised by R.K.Moore

Abstract

Speech recognition technology emerged in the 1950s and has made significant progress over the past two decades, Many experts considered that speech recognition was one of the top ten most important developments in information technology between 200 and 2010.

Speech recognition has a very wide range of applications. Common applications include the speech input system, which compared to the keyboard input method is more in line with people's daily habits, more natural and more efficent; and the voice control systems, which uses the voice to control the operation of the equipment and relative to manual control is faster and more convenient.

In 2011, when Apple announced its voice assistant Siri, people were full of curiosity about this new technology. From the keys to the touch screen to the voice, human-computer interaction is gradually becomming faster and more 'smart'.

However, the current technology is not mature enough: the position of the intelligent voice is not yet clear, at present it has a low practical value, has not yet reached a 'must-have' level, and cannot meet the user's demands. These limitations leave intelligent voice technology still at tepid or halfway stage; but we believe that once the mature technology develops, it will become an indispensable part of the smartphone.