VoiceXML Review - Letter from the Editor

Volume 1, Issue 4 - April 2001

Dear Readers,

In the January issue you may recall reading Gerald Karam's article describing the efforts of the VoiceXML Forum and the W3C Voice Browser Working Group in evolving the VoiceXML language. While we fully expect the evolved dialog language from the W3C will be called VoiceXML 2.0, do note that it's not official until we have the first public document from the W3C using this name. This month we are pleased to bring you detailed technical updates on a couple of the Working Draft specifications that have been released by the W3C.

The VoiceXML 1.0 specification does not mandate any particular speech grammar format. Most existing VoiceXML platforms tend to support the grammar format(s) supported by the underlying speech recognition engine. This can limit the portability of VoiceXML applications. To address this issue, the Voice Browser Working Group has developed the Speech Recognition Grammar Specification. Andrew Hunt, one of the editors of the specification, contributes an informative article entitled Introduction to the W3C Grammar Format in this month's issue. Andrew's article develops the motivation behind the specification and then walks us through a series of examples demonstrating the various elements defined by the XML form of the language. This new grammar specification language is critical in that browsers implementing VoiceXML 2.0 will be required to support it.

Another Working Draft specification released by the Voice Browser Working Group is the Speech Synthesis Markup Language Specification (SSML). This specification defines a new XML-based markup language that provides a standard way to describe input to text-to-speech synthesizers. This month, Mark Walker and Andrew Hunt, editors of the SSML specification, have contributed an article entitled The Speech Synthesis Markup Language for the W3C VoiceXML Standard. The authors describe the key elements of the language, as it exists today, and also introduce a number of areas that are under investigation for future versions of the language.

This month, our First Words columnist Rob Marchand rolls up his sleeves and starts his own VoiceXML-enabled pizza franchise! Rob begins the first of a series of columns that will put into practice the basic VoiceXML concepts he's been covering in his previous columns.

In our Speak & Listen column, Jeff Kunins is back with answers to the questions that you all have submitted. We received a variety of questions this month ranging from the details of the <record> tag, all the way to the very broad "how do I build my own VoiceXML platform, and how much will it cost?" question! Don't forget to send us that tough VoiceXML-related question you've been struggling with: .

Finally, if you missed the VoiceXML Forum's first User Group Meeting earlier this month, don't despair. Visit the Forum's website (www.voicexml.org) you'll soon be able to download the viewgraphs from the various presentations.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Engelsma
Editor-in-Chief, VoiceXML Review

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