VoiceXML Review - Letter from the Editor

Volume 5, Issue 1 - January / February 2005

February 2005

Dear Readers,

We’re pleased to announce another issue of the VoiceXML Review. Given the important role VoiceXML continues to play in emerging multimodal standards, we’ve invited Debbie Dahl, Chair of the W3C Multimodal Interaction Working Group to provide us a detailed update on multimodal standards progress to-date and what’s in store for 2005.

A number of you have participated in the VoiceXML Forum’s recent training survey. You’ll find the results of this survey and some insight into the activities of the Forum’s Education Committee for 2005 in an article submitted by Jim Larson and myself. We’d encourage your company to get involved in the activities of the EDU committee. The committee is responsible for the VoiceXML Review, the Dev. Certification program, and a number of other Forum-related programs. You can find more information online at: http://www.voicexml.org/resources/education.html.

In the past two issues of the First Words column Rob Marchand (VoiceGenie) has been giving us a gentle introduction to the new features introduced by the VoiceXML 2.1 specification. This month, Rob introduces us to the <mark> element, demonstrating how to determine just how much of a prompt the user listened to before barging in on it.

Our resident VoiceXML guru – Matt Oshry (Tellme) continues to address your technical questions in his Speak and Listen column. Matt’s column this month demonstrates platform independent “confidence-based confirmation” techniques in VoiceXML. Matt also continues to address your questions on the new VoiceXML 2.1 specification. Send you tricky questions to for Matt to address in future columns. Do be aware though that while Matt is brilliant and efficient, he is forced to be somewhat selective in what questions he publishes in his column! If your question needs immediate attention, the odds are you’ll find plenty of eager help awaiting you on the VoiceXML Forum’s message board.

Finally, if you happen to be out at SpeechTEK West 2005 this week, remember to drop by the VoiceXML Forum’s booth in the exhibit hall (#221). Detailed information on the Forum’s activities at SpeechTEK as well as a directory of member company booths is available on the Forum’s website.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Engelsma
Editor-in-Chief
VoiceXML Review

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