14 DAY TRIAL // Developers interested in coming up with applications that can take advantage of Speech Recognition and Text-to-Speech technology can now download a new version of the Microsoft Speech Platform Runtime version 11, complemented by an updated SDK for it.
Offering support for Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Windows Vista, the new Microsoft Speech Platform Runtime 11.0.7400.345 brings along managed (.NET) and native (COM) API for devs who plan the launch of Server based speech applications.
As for the new Microsoft Speech Platform SDK 11.0.7400.345, it brings along new functionality in the Microsoft Grammar Development Tools. The enhancements should enable application builders validate, debug, test, and optimize grammars for their software.
The new developer tools include Check Phrase, meant to take a phrase and a grammar as input and outputs even when the phrase is in the grammar and to emit custom pronunciations associated with the phrase.
Another new tool is Confusability, designed to identify phrases in a grammar that are phonetically similar, so as to eliminate any poor experience users might have from the app.
The tool is capable of accepting multiple grammar files as input, and to perform an analysis on the full list. Confusability can emit confusable results for phrases whose semantics match, or can be set to filter the results for only specific semantic nodes.
The new Microsoft Speech Platform SDK version also brings along changes to other grammar development tools, such as Grammar Validator, Phrase Generator, Simulator Results Analyzer, and Simulator.
Other new features and improvements include: - Support for custom pronunciations. There is expanded support for custom pronunciations both inline in grammars and in lexicon files that are linked from grammars. See Custom Pronunciations Support.
- Explicit handling of SRGS "special" rule behavior. Improved handling and more descriptive output for grammars that contain the NULL, VOID, and GARBAGE rules have been added across the Grammar Development Tools. See Special Rules Support.
- Support for cookie pass-through. You can now define cookies to use for local or web provider types in both the Simulator's recognition configuration file and the EMMA input file. See Simulator Reference Manual and Setting Up the Grammar Development Tools.
- New installation option. You can choose the path for the installation of the Speech Platform SDK version 11.
- Windows XP support for SDK tools. The Grammar Development Tools (with the exception of PrepareGrammar.exe) are now supported on computers running Windows XP, but only for some providers. Using the "local" provider is not supported on Windows XP. See Speech Recognition Engine Configuration File Settings for more information.
The new Microsoft Speech Platform Runtime Version 11.0.7400.345 is available on Softpedia via this link.
The Microsoft Speech Platform SDK Version 11.0.7400.345 can be downloaded from here.