Microsoft touts speech innovations in Windows Phone 7

Microsoft gave a keynote speech today  at SpeechTek 2010, and there touted the integration of their speech recognition in their new ventures, including Windows Phone 7.

Claiming the speech user interface is elegant and accessible, they claim Microsoft is raising the bar for mobile device interactions, with speech seamlessly integrated into the phone experience, for functions such as search, navigation and dialing.

Of course with Android allowing speech text entry in all text fields this claim is a bit dubious, but it is nice to see Microsoft finally do something with their $1 billion Tellme purchase.

Microsoft Tellme uses a cloud-based architecture for speech recognition. This architecture takes the billions of speech interactions running on the Microsoft Tellme speech cloud and uses them to improve the underlying recognition engine and improve the understanding of a user’s intent.

This will allow for example Windows Phone 7 users of the Bing voice search technology to ask, “Who is pitching for the Giants tonight?” and get a listing of starting pitchers as well as ticket and weather information for the game.

Microsoft promised to invest even more in Speech as a New User Interface.

“Microsoft is creating rich, immersive and seamless experiences across devices, delivered from the cloud. Speech will become the tool we use to unlock the power of devices as their connectivity and capabilities accelerate,” said  Zig Serafin, general manager of the Speech Group at Microsoft.

Read more at Microsoft here.