The telephone was invented in the 1870s and continues to be a very important means for people to communicate with each other. The Web by comparison is very recent, but is rapidly becoming a competing communications channel. The convergence of telecommunications and the Web is now bringing the benefits of Web technology to the telephone, enabling Web developers to create applications that can be accessed via any telephone, and allowing people to interact with these applications via speech and telephone keypads. The W3C Speech Interface Framework is a suite of markup specifications aimed at realizing this goal. It covers voice dialogs (VoiceXML), speech synthesis (SSML), speech recognition (SRGS, SISR), pronunciation lexicon (PLS), call control (CCXML, SCXML) and other requirements for interactive voice response applications, including use by people with hearing or speaking impairments.
The Working Group concentrates on languages for capturing and producing speech and managing the dialog between user and computer, while a related Group, the Multimodal Interaction Working Group, concentrates on additional input modes including keyboard and mouse, ink and pen, etc.
The Voice Browser Working Group published the Candidate Recommendation of Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) Version 1.1 on 7 November 2008 as planned. The group also published the next generation dialog framework, Voice Extensible Markup Language (VoiceXML) 3.0, as a First Public Working Draft while State Chart XML (SCXML) and Voice Browser Call Control (CCXML) 1.0 are making steady progress.
The group held its recent face to face meeting in Cannes-Mandelieu on 23-24 October 2008 hosted by the W3C, and had detailed discussion on VoiceXML 3.0 including external eventing, data model, record and "speaker identification and verification" (SIV). Please see also the detailed summary from the meeting archived in the group's public archive.
The group is now preparing for the Workshop on Speaker biometrics and VoiceXML 3.0 to solicit requirements for the SIV functionality of the VoiceXML 3.0 specification. The workshop will be held on 5-6 March 2009 in Menlo Park, CA, US hosted by SRI International.
The Voice Browser Working Group charter expired on January 31 and has been extended to the end of April to finish the work on the new proposed Working Group charter.
The group plans to focus on VoiceXML 3.0 and SCXML 1.0 for the next charter period, however, may decide to do additional work on the existing recommendations. The group also continue the work to make the other two existing specifications, SSML 1.1 and CCXML, W3C Recommendations. The next Working Draft of VoiceXML 3.0 is planned in early April and the Last Call Working Draft of SCXML is expected in the second quarter of 2010, while SSML 1.1 is expected to transition to a Proposed Recommendation right after getting sufficient implementation reports and the Candidate Recommendation of CCXML is planned in March 2009. The group will also pulish an errata page for VoiceXML 2.0/2.1.
The group may schedule up to 3 full group f2f meetings if the group participants believe it to be beneficial. For budgeting purposes, the group may hold 3 working group meetings per year. We anticipate holding a f2f in association with the upcoming Technical Plenary. However, currently we have no additional f2f meetings planned.
| Group | Chair | Team Contact | Charter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Voice Browser Working Group (participants) | Jim Larson, Scott McGlashan | Matt Womer, Kazuyuki Ashimura | Chartered until 30 June 2009 |
This Activity Statement was prepared for the October 2008 W3C Advisory Committee Meeting (Members only) per section 5 of the W3C Process Document. Generated from group data.
Kazuyuki Ashimura, Voice Browser Activity Lead
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