Speech pattern recognized

Speech-recognition software Nuance Communications, Inc. has unveiled version 9 of its Nuance Recognizer (What else would they call it, really?), a speech recognition engine for speech-based customer care and voice search solutions. The development project is code-named Quantum and reportedly is the result of over 400 person-years of research and development.

"Nuance Recognizer signals a new era of performance for speech solutions," said Nuance speech division president Steve Chambers, throwing that gauntlet like it’s never been thrown before.

Nuance is claiming an average error reduction of 27 percent error reduction rate over previous versions. Company PR states that “Nuance Recognizer is designed to understand what users mean, not just what they say. … For example, if a caller states, ‘I’m moving to Atlanta and need a new number for my cell phone,’ the system can decipher several pieces of information from the caller’s single statement … Since up to 20 percent of retries and confirmations are from callers providing too much information at once, these advanced natural language capabilities deliver significant performance improvements…”