EU project develops human-computer dialogue system
Although new technologies should make life easier, the reality is often the opposite: the owner of a new technology must first struggle with user manuals before they can actually start using the device. An EU-funded consortium therefore decided to work on developing a human-computer dialogue system to allow humans to simply tell a device what it would like it to do. 'It is obvious that communication between human beings and complex technology can only be successful if the users can talk in their everyday language and can choose between various possibilities to interact with the system,' said Professor Manfred Pinkal, the coordinator of the project from Saarland University. So the TALK project developed a system based on speech recognition and interaction, which it then combined with a graphical interface and conventional buttons. 'The users say what they want to say, in the way they want to say it - with short commands or complete sentences, using words they choose themselves,' the professor explained. Furthermore, the system learns from the interactive process, adapting to the knowledge, situation and conversational behaviour of its user. This enables the deployment of the system in a range of complex contexts, from intelligent cars to smart homes, which will now be developed by the industrial partners in the project. The TALK (Talk and Look, Tools for Ambient Linguistic Knowledge) project received a total of €4.4 million under the EU's Sixth Framework Programme (FP6) from the 'Information Society Technologies' thematic area.