Vox pops for the future

If you talk to domestic appliances, are you mad? Not if they are voice-activated and, according to delegates at Voice World, the annual speech technology conference, we could all be doing it soon. But what manufacturers predict will be a hit, and what actually is, usually differs greatly. James Adams, an analyst for technology research firm Datamonitor, looks at the runners and also-rans.

Internet

PCs already have dictation programs which use voice recognition and now companies in the US are enabling people to talk to a website over the phone. For instance, if you want to order a book, you can phone a firm and it will take your information, go to your web server and talk to it as if it was a person browsing. At the moment, only a trimmed-down version of the Web - comparable to WAP services - is on offer.

Game Consoles

Microsoft is considering voice-enabling the Xbox. Given that it is basically a PC, it wouldn't be difficult as they just need to add a microphone; the software could be written now. There'll be a limited amount of games that could use it but strategic and military ones, where separate units have to take orders, would particularly benefit.

Interactive TV

Speech recognition would make shouting at the TV effective at last, but continual background noise causes problems. Imagine watching ITV1 when a newsreader says BBC1; the channel will switch. Eventually it may be able to recognise individual voices but that's a long way off and TV companies have enough to sort out with the move to digital. What's wrong with a remote control, anyway?

Cars

Being able to open e-mail and have it read to you while driving may prove popular. Car manufacturers get excited about speech technology, but there are problems - and it's unlikely we'll be able to drive a car just by talking to it. The background noise in cars and the distance of the microphone from a driver would impede the signal, which needs to be good for the system to work. It would be little more than a gimmick and won't revolutionise the way we use cars.

Interactive Homes

A voice-enabled interactive house could make life much easier for the disabled and the elderly. Anyone with impaired mobility could control their central heating, turn on their oven or even run their bath with their voice. The technology would need to be made friendly enough and it would be an expensive set-up.

Call Centres

This is where the technology will really take off. Voice recognition systems will replace the very unpopular recorded messages currently in place. Some cinemas already use a limited system and it is likely to prove popular with banks for transferring money and checking balances. It can also act as an added security mechanism by authenticating a voice.