Contents

1. Voice Browser
2. The Voice Browser Working Group
3. Internationalizing SSML
4. What is expected to China

Voice Browser

Applying Web technology to enable users to access services from their telephone.

Applications

• - Accessing public information: weather, cinema schedule, etc.
• - Accessing private services: voicemail, bank, airline reservation, etc.

Applying Web technology

• - Web paradigms apply to telephony: languages (XML, Unicode, etc.), protocols (HTTP, URIs)
• - Phone/Web convergence: VoIP, screen-enabled telephones, etc.
• - Many different areas of computer science: standards are essential.

Framework for Voice Browser

DFP: New Speech Interface Framework

Modular approach faciliates application development, maintainance, debugging and reuse.

Speech Interface Framework specifications

Presentation:

• - SISR
• - SRGS
• - SSML
• - PLS

Flow:

• - VoiceXML 2.0
• - VoiceXML 2.1
• - VoiceXML 3.0 (DFP Overview)
• - CCXML
• - SCXML

Data: Included in SCXML

The Voice Browser Working Group

- The biggest group in W3C

- 88 participants from 36 organisations

- Specifications in progress:
  VoiceXML 2.1, VoiceXML 3.0, SISR, PLS, CCXML, SCXML, SSML

- Telephone Conferences (Every week)

- Face-to-Face meeting (Once per 3 months)

- Mailing List (Public / WG Internal)

- IRC connection

Team Contact's Task

Supporting WG Member's activity

- Administrative documents:

• Charter, Activity Statement, Public Web page

- Publication of document:

• Working Draft, Candidate Rec, Proposed Rec, Recommendation, W3C Note, etc.

- Participation in WG activities:

• Telephone Conference, F2F Meeting, Workshop, ...

- Standard WG logistics

Internationalizing SSML

Workshop in Beijing: 2-3 Nov. 2005

• To identify and prioritize issues to improve the use of SSML for rendering non-English languages
• - Speech Experts from Asian and Western countries participated
• - Extensions and additions to SSML are identified and prioritized

Agenda & Minutes:

• http://www.w3.org/2005/08/SSML/ssml-workshop-agenda.html

Participants list:

• http://www.w3.org/2005/08/SSML/ssml-workshop-participants.html

Issues clarified in the Beijing Workshop

High Priority: Common problems in many Asian languages

• - Word boundaries
• - Denote languages and dialects
• - Phonetic alphabets

Middle Priority: Language specific

• - Chinese names
• - Special words
• - Tones and tone sandhi
• - Sentence structure
• - Text with multiple languages
• - mora/sec
• - Ruby

Lower Priority: Difficult to standardize...

• - diacritics
• - Expand POS
• - Expressive elements
• - Background sound
• - Syllable markup

Future Plan

Basic Policy

• - High and Middle Priority issues will be included next SSML (SSML 1.1)
• - Lower Priority issues are included only if some WG members support and implmement.

Current status & Plan

• - Discussion is ongoing in SSML subgroup of VBWG
• - Many participants in the subgroup from China
• - Held the Kickoff meeting of the subgroup: 18-19 April (Last week!)
• - Second Workshop in Greece for Middle Eastern Languages: 30-31 May

What is expected to China?

IT Industry in China Exhibiting Significant Growth

China's participation in Global Standardaization is indispensable

• - software development based on the Gloval Standard
• - actively participate in developing the standard
• - feedback on issues like internationalization and mobile Web usage

The world will know China more & China will know the world more ;-)

More information

• - These slides are available at: http://www.w3.org/2006/Talks/0427-Voice/
• - The Voice Browser Working Group Charter
• - The Voice Browser Actiivity Statement
• - The Voice Browser Working Group public page
• - W3C Mission
• - Membership Benefits
• - the SSML Workshop in Beijing
• - the Second SSML Workshop in Greece