Welcome to VoiceXML. This column focuses on VoiceXML (Voice eXtensible Markup
Language), an emerging standard (defined by VoiceXML Forum, submitted to the
W3C Voice Browser Activity Group) for the development of interactive
voice-based applications. It's one of the first standards that opens up the
formerly proprietary platforms for the development of Interactive Voice
Recognition (IVR) and Speech Recognition applications. VoiceXML allows
developers to leverage their skills and investments in existing Web
technologies (such as J2EE and Microsoft COM+). This first column focuses on
getting you started with developing dynamic VoiceXML applications.
Just as HTML allowed developers to create sites and personalized Web
applications for anyone with a browser and an Internet connection, so
VoiceXML enables developers to create voice portals that can be accessed by
anyone ... (more)
One thing weve learned from Web-based application development is that tools
are useful only if they can reuse components and third-party libraries and
make it easy to assemble applications. This article reviews how we can build
modular speech applications using VoiceXML. The focus will be on the language
constructs that VoiceXML provides for modularization and reusability and on
vendor-specific approaches toward creation of a library of reusable dialogs
for speech applications.
As a language, VoiceXML is designed for reusability and modularity. Similar
to the Web paradigm, Voice... (more)
Speech Application Language Tags (SALT) is a set of XML-based tags that can
be added to existing Web-based applications, enhancing the user interface
through interactive speech recognition. In addition, SALT can be used to
extend Web-based applications to the telephony world, thereby providing an
opportunity to unleash the potential of a huge user community, users of
normal touch-tone telephones.
SALTforum, an organization founded by Microsoft, Cisco, SpeechWorks, Philips,
Comverse, and Intel, has spearheaded development of the SALT specification,
now in its 1.0 release.
Multim... (more)
One of the key reasons behind the explosive growth of the Web is the
simplicity and ease of use of the underlying standards - TCP/IP, HTTP, and
HTML. Experts and critics have often argued about what's wrong with HTML and
HTTP and why we need IPv6 et al. For instance, with the advent of XHTML, we
are now realizing why HTML should have probably been XML-ized from Day 1;
similarly, we criticize the fact that HTTP is stateless. However, the
ubiquity of these standards has easily surpassed their technological
imperfections.
Enter XML, and the definition of ubiquity changes altogether... (more)
"Java and XML - portable code and portable data." Even though this saying has
been around since Java developers began using XML, developers have always
faced a general XML programming-related productivity problem: manipulating
XML content is rather different from manipulating Java objects.
This problem has been amplified with the emergence of XML Schema, the W3C
standard type system for XML documents. While XML Schema provides a rich type
system for XML documents, it isn't simple. Above all, the XML Schema type
system differs significantly from the Java type system (e.g., the noti... (more)
Hitesh Seth is chief technology officer of ikigo, Inc., a provider of XML-based web-services monitoring and management software. A freelance writer and well-known speaker, he regularly writes for technology publications on VoiceXML, Web Services, J2EE and Microsoft .NET, Wireless Computing & Enterprise/B2B Integration. He is the conference chair for VoiceXML Planet Conference & Expo.
Scott Sellers
Anthony Franco
Daniel Morris
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Ken Guiberson
