A number of voice recognition systems are available on the market. The most powerful can recognize thousands of words. However, they generally require an extended training session during which the computer system becomes accustomed to a particular voice and accent. Such systems are said to be speaker dependent.

Many systems also require that the speaker speak slowly and distinctly and separate each word with a short pause. These systems are called discrete speech systems. Recently, great strides have been made in continuous speech systems -- voice recognition systems that allow you to speak naturally. There are now several continuous-speech systems available for personal computers.

Because of their limitations and high cost, voice recognition systems have traditionally been used only in a few specialized situations. For example, such systems are useful in instances when the user is unable to use a keyboard to enter data because his or her hands are occupied or disabled. Instead of typing commands, the user can simply speak into a headset. Increasingly, however, as the cost decreases and performance improves, speech recognition systems are entering the mainstream and are being used as an alternative to keyboards.

Speech Research Links 
Excellent collection of speech related resources on the Web.

21st Century Eloquence home page
21st Century Eloquence is a reseller of voice recognition software products. Their site contains information on voice recognition products, comparisons, articles, a newsletter, and downloadable demos.

Voice recognition opinions page
Offers excerpts from various voice recognition experts.

Center for Spoken Language Understanding
The Center for Spoken Language Understanding is a research group dedicated to spoken langauge research. These pages describe current research, the CSLU toolkit, CSLU speech databases, and CSLU publications.

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