Life as an intern: Week 6

its research again :(

1st topic: Text to Speech (TTS)

TTS is the ability of the operating system to play back printed text as spoken words. An internal driver, called a TTS engine, recognizes the text and using a synthesized voice chosen from several pre-generated voices, speaks the written text. A TTS engine is installed with the operating system. Additional engines are also available through third-party manufacturers. These engines often use a certain jargon or vocabulary; for example, a vocabulary specializing in medical or legal terminology. They can also use different voices allowing for regional accents such as British English, or speak a different language altogether such as German, French, or Russian. 

To determine the selected Text-to-Speech voice, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, click Control Panel, and then double-click Speech.
   On the Text-to-Speech tab, the displayed name in the Voice selection drop-down list is the currently active voice.
2. Click Preview Voice to hear the active voice. The text is spoken and the words are highlighted as they are spoken.

To preview the Text-to-Speech voice, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, click Control Panel, and then double-click Speech.
   On the Text-to-Speech tab, the displayed name in the Voice selection drop-down list is the active voice.
2. Click Preview Voice to hear the currently selected voice. The text is spoken and the words are highlighted as they are spoken.
3. During playback, Preview Voice will change to Stop. Click Stop to interrupt the voice playback.

text to speech

2nd topic: Speech to Text

Speech recognition is the process of converting an acoustic signal, captured by a microphone or a telephone, to a set of words. The recognized words can be the final results, as for applications such as commands & control, data entry, and document preparation. They can also serve as the input to further linguistic processing in order to achieve speech understanding.

Speech recognition systems can be characterized by many parameters. An isolated-word speech recognition system requires that the speaker pause briefly between words, whereas a continuous speech recognition system does not. Spontaneous, or extemporaneously generated, speech contains disfluencies, and is much more difficult to recognize than speech read from script. Some systems require speaker enrollment - a user must provide samples of his or her speech before using them, whereas other systems are said to be speaker-independent, in that no enrollment is necessary. Some of the other parameters depend on the specific task. Recognition is generally more difficult when vocabularies are large or have many similar-sounding words. When speech is produced in a sequence of words, language models or artificial grammars are used to restrict the combination of words.

one of the speech to text applications

3rd topic: Predictive dialing

Predictive dialing uses a computer-based system that automatically dials groups of telephone numbers, and then passes calls to available operators or agents in a calling center once the calls are connected. The most common use of predictive dialing is in call centers which make large amounts of calls, such as those run by telemarketing companies. Predictive dialing was introduced for the purpose of increasing efficiency within calling centers. Prior to its development, most call centers used devices known as auto dialers, which were merely computers equipped with telephony boards that could dial a number without a caller having to manually enter it on a keypad. Predictive dialing is far more advanced than using an auto dialer because it monitors calls made to see how they are answered. If the call goes unanswered, is met with a busy signal or answering machine, or reaches a fax machine, the predictive dialer immediately ends the call. Only calls that are answered by a live person are put through to an operator. Therefore, productivity is increased because callers do not have to listen to unanswered calls or wait for someone to pick up. Predictive dialing is so named because it predicts when callers will become available to take a new call, and dials calls in advance. 

-thanks faithful listener-