LRRP SpeechWebs

The paper describes a new architecture for accessing hyperlinked speech-accessible knowledge sources that are distributed over the Internet. The architecture, LRRP SpeechWeb, uses Local thin-client application-specific speech Recognition and Remote natural-language query Processing. Users navigate an LRRP SpeechWeb using voice-activated hyperlink commands, and query the knowledge sources through spoken natural-language using a speech browser executing on a local device (Frost, R.A. and Chitte, S., Proc. PACLING ´99, Conf. of Pacific Association for Computational Linguistics, p.82-90, 1999). It differs from the use of speech interfaces to conventional Web HTML pages, from conventional telephone access to remote speech applications (as used in many call centers), and from the use of a network of hyperlinked VXML pages. The architecture is ideally suited for use when cell-phones become available with built-in speech-to-text and text-to-speech capabilities.