Voice access of global information for broad-band wireless: Technologies of today and challenges of tomorrow

The rapid development of the Inter-net and the World Wide Web has created a global network that will soon become a physical embodiment of the entire h uman knowledge and a complete integration of the global information activit ies. The traditional approach to access the network is through a computer p hysically tied to the network. As broad-band wireless takes off the traditi onal tethered approach will gradually become obsolete. Tt is believed that one of the mast natural and user;friendly approaches for accessing the netw ork will be via human voice, and the integration of spoke language processi ng technologies with broad-band wireless technologies will be a key to the evolution of a broad-band wireless information community. This paper of off ers a vision of the above concept. Technical considerations and some typica l example applications of accessing the information and services ruing voic e in a broad-band wireless environment are discussed. Fundamentals of spoke n language processing technologies that are crucial in such a broad-band wi reless environment pre briefly reviewed Technical challenges caused by the unique nature of wireless mobile communications are also presented along wi th some possible solutions.