ABSTRACT
Automatic speech recognition (ASR) is a 25-year-old technology whose time may finally have come. It is a technology for communicating with a machine using spoken words or phrases. Lernout and Hauspie, one of the forerunners in speech recognition technology, have launched a variety of speech products that enables people to control remotely the central heating, lighting, burglar alarms, cookers and video recorders with speech commands. ASR will increasingly be used for home banking, transactions on the Web, and even as security for hole-in-the-wall cash machines Because every human voice is different, speech is considered secure.
