Speech recognition - state of the art, applications, and future prospects

Automatic speech recognition and understanding has been subject to intensiv e research for several decades. A few years ago, the first commercial appli cations for the technology resulting from these efforts began to emerge. It is now obvious that speech recognition technology will soon play an import ant role in everyday life and also in business. In this paper, we outline t he basic principles of speech recognition technology and analyze its potent ials and also its limitations. We discuss current and possible future appli cations, ranging from simple command control systems and dictation systems to natural language dialogue and translation systems.