Lernout & Hauspie, a leader in speech recognition, has filed for bankruptcy (due to accounting irregularities, esp. with regard to its Korean numbers). IBM, Microsoft, and Philips are other major suppliers of speech software. Voice recognition software is expected to become an $8B market in three years, starting in mobile computing. [Financial Times, 01Dec00. Edupage.] (Don't forget Nuance! Their stock -- which I hold -- plunged with the rest of the NASDAQ, from a recent-IPO high of $180 to a low of about $32. It now seems to be bobbing back up (above $60), possibly because it can do well no matter who becomes President. Their closest competitor, SpeechWorks, is doing much the same. Dragon Systems is owned by L&H, and there's no word yet on what will happen to their technology -- or to Microsoft's projects with L&H.)

MacSpeech has released iListen 1.0, a $99 continuous dictation program for the Mac. . (Its competition is discussed in TidBITS #544, .) There is a $30 rebate offer for owners of IBM's ViaVoice. Recommended microphone/headset units are $53 or $57 at . [TidBITS, 27Nov00.]

Alexander Gross says that dictation and machine translation programs haven't made much progress since his Oct86 suggestion in BYTE Magazine that voicewriters be tested on the following: "Cap Ten and my caftan," kept on crying the Captain, "Cap Ten!" Of numbered caps Cap Ten suited the Captain. He had numbered them as the numb bird landed. "Land dead ahead!" called out the Mate to cawing from the numb bird. Would its gnaw tickle? It cawed, but it was caught on the carpet. "Correction!" the Captain would carp pettily, "Your nautical law has no tickle. We've three types of wreck here: surface, deeper, core. Sir, fuss deeper, weave, hear the screw's deep purr. This ship's an old seesaw!" The Captain capped an epigram: "Old sea saw: Correction! Core wreck shun. Cap Ten and my caftan! I as a Copenhagen Captain coped on a capstan and kept on coping!" Gross would like to see fewer than five errors in transcription (and notes that Sino-Tibetan languages are even more difficult than English). [, comp.ai.nat-lang, 01Dec00.]

----- "Warren Buffet was right again. Cash flow, profitability and earnings matter. Launch parties and sock puppets don't." -- Michael Dell. [SNS, 15Nov00.] -----