Web browser developer Opera Software wants to help you tell your TV to check what’s on, thanks to the launch of a voice-enabled TV guide.
The Oslo, Norway, company’s Electronic Program Guide (EPG) is based on
IBM’s
ViaVoice implementation of the XHTML+Voice (X+V)
multimodal
markup language specification currently wending its way through the
Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C) standards process.
The company plans to roll out a voice-enabled version of its desktop PC
Web
browser in late March or early April. Beta testing of the new browser
began
in
December.
Officials said the technology is suited to any number of digital
home
entertainment components, such as DVD players and digital video
recorders; it also focuses on the benefits voice technology would have on the cable or
satellite set-top boxes. Now, instead of wading through programming on
hundreds of channels by remote, users can tell the set-top box, “find me a
documentary,” or “find G-rated fare” in order to display the relevant shows.
Jon von Tetzchner, Opera CEO, said its Web-based presentation
environment is
ideal for EPGs because of the ease of customization, standards
compliance
and speed. Borrowing a page from Opera’s customization abilities,
operators
and end-users can modify the EPG’s themes and functionality with ease.
He said the integration of voice with data is a natural evolution, and has enormous
potential in the integrated home media market. “Through our efforts with IBM, we hope to enable operators and OEMs
talking.”
Opera has proven itself adept at morphing its desktop Web browser for different media. Its desktop version, currently at version 7.54,
has
found its way into the mobile market through Qualcomm
, Motorola
and Microsoft
as well as into embedded systems like set-top
boxes.
Eskil Sivertsen, an Opera spokesman, said the company has a couple
demonstration models of the voice-enabled EPG and is talking to
manufacturers, but doesn’t expect set-top boxes to feature its
technology
immediately.
“The whole media market is very complex and fragmented so it’s not as
simple
as with desktop computers or mobile,” he said. “It’s a longer
process.”
Opera’s software is based and developed on IBM’s WebSphere Multimodal
Toolkit, which uses the Everyplace Multimodal Environment to develop
voice-enabled applications using the X+V markup language. X+V is made
up of
three W3C standards: XML Events, Voice XML and XHTML. Opera and IBM
are
the main authors of the X+V Profile version 1.0 specification.
Igor Jablokov, program director in IBM’s multimodal and voice portals
group,
said the company’s ViaVoice technology is slowly finding its way into
different products, such as an announcement Monday with Teges Corp. to
create an application that lets doctors and nurses enter or access
patient
information by voice or using a keyboard.
The next step, he said, is to get the technology in cell phones, which
currently support a very rudimentary type of voice recognition. The
goal
isn’t to get users to access pre-recorded information but to create a
program that’s ready to go from the moment its installed.
“I think we [need to] continue to enhance both our server-based
technologies
and our embedded-based technologies with enhanced features like user
authentication,” Jablokov said, “and things like natural language
understanding, where you really don’t have grammar that is pre-defined
but
you use the [V+X] model to figure out what you’re asking for.”
The news was announced as part of the SpeechTek conference that kicked off in San Francisco Monday.
