W3C has published standards that enhance the capabilities and interoperability of voice browsers and speech recognition systems. The W3C Voice Browser Working Group has completed work on both VoiceXML 2.1 and Semantic Interpretation for Speech Recognition (SISR) 1.0.
VoiceXML 2.1 extends the widely used VoiceXML 2.0 dialog language to include commonly implemented features. These features include dynamic references to grammars and scripts, detecting when during a prompt the user barges-in, and processing multiple sets of data from the server in a single access. All VoiceXML 2.0 applications will work under VoiceXML 2.1 without modification, allowing for significant interoperability.
Semantic Interpretation for Speech Recognition (SISR 1.0) enables developers to extract and translate textual representations of words recognized by a speech recognition system and structure the results into a format convenient for processing by the speech application. For example, with SISR, one could specify the instructions for converting the spoken sentence "I want to fly from Los Angeles to Seattle." to a data structure containing "departure: LAX" and "destination: SEA" .
Speech Interface Framework Built by International Leaders in Research and Industry
The W3C Speech Interface Framework includes the completed standards VoiceXML 2.1, SISR 1.0, Speech Recognition Grammar Specification (SRGS 1.0), and Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML 1.0). W3C anticipates that the next pieces of the Speech Interface Framework to become W3C Recommendations are CCXML, Pronunciation Lexicon Specification (PLS 1.0) and SSML 1.1. The Voice Browser Working Group is also developing State Chart XML (SCXML) and VoiceXML 3.0.
The government must have a search warrant before it can secretly seize and search emails stored by email service providers, according to a landmark ruling Monday in the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The court found that email users have the same reasonable expectation of privacy in their stored email as they do in their telephone calls -- the first circuit court ever to make that finding.
A judge ordered the FBI today to finally release agency records about its abuse of National Security Letters (NSLs) to collect Americans' personal information. The ruling came just a day after the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) urged the judge to immediately respond in its lawsuit over agency delays.
EFF sued the FBI in April for failing to respond to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request about the misuse of NSLs as revealed in a Justice Department report. This week, more evidence of abuse was uncovered by the Washington Post, and EFF urged the judge Thursday to force the FBI to stop stalling the release of its records on the deeply flawed program.
Consumers, including corporate and banking executives, appear to be targets of a bogus e-mail supposedly sent by the Federal Trade Commission but actually sent by third parties hoping to install spyware on computers. The bogus e-mail poses as an acknowledgment of a complaint filed by the recipient, and includes an attachment. Consumers who open the attachment to this e-mail unleash malicious spyware onto their computer. The agency warns consumers who get this e-mail that purports to be from the FTC:
An Azusa man who was the first person convicted by a jury under the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 for operating a sophisticated "phishing scheme" has been sentenced to 70 months in federal prison for committing identity theft, credit card fraud, witness harassment and other offenses.
Jeffrey Brett Goodin, 47, was sentenced Monday afternoon by United States District Judge Christina A. Snyder in Los Angeles. In addition to the prison term of nearly six years, Judge Snyder ordered Goodin to pay $1,002,885.58 to the victims of his phishing scheme, including nearly $1 million to Earthlink.