Voice Activation Programs

Voice activation technology has begun to enjoy wide popularity, and has been deployed in diverse applications ranging from telephone dialing and telephonic response systems to managing assistive programs or as a device for people with mobility impairment. Voice activation programs (VAPs) are a subset of the more powerful voice recognition speech engines utilized to replace hardware devices in more complete computing systems.

VAP systems can ‘learn’ differing sounds in varying dialects from different people. Most personal applications require some training for optimum results, but a few, such as automated answering and selection systems deployed by banks and other institutions, are sufficiently simple when utilized by speakers with minimal accents.

The complexities of the English language, where many spoken words may have from two to five meanings apiece, ...