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Software

Submission + - What's the best Speech Recognition today?

Submitted by StonyCreekBare
StonyCreekBare writes: A client wants to build a kiosk system intended to interact with the user entirely via speech. Speech Recognition is absolutely key to the success of the project, so an excellent speech recognition engine is absolutely key to success.

Key requirements are Speaker Independence, and a large vocabulary, with a great deal of flexibility for recognizing arbitrary speech. The system needs to interact with arbitrary speakers on a walk-up basis.

I have built a reasonable "Proof-of-concept" prototype using an L&H / Windows based system. I was quite pleased with the overall performance of the system, and believe an optimized system could do even better. My goal is not so much to improve the recognition performance (although there is room for improvement), as to improve the system reliability and to have more control at the system level.

There seems to be two candidates to supply the system. Microsoft and Nuance.

The Microsoft Speech SDK has the unfortunate circumstance of being innately wedded to Windows, and all the other viable systems (such as L&H, and Viavoice) seem to have been acquired by Nuance. Microsoft's system seems to require a lot of training to perform well, which is unacceptable. At least the L&H system is truly speaker independent. I would greatly prefer to use a Linux or BSD solution, if viable, so that requires a *nix compatible solution.

I have seen some other systems, mostly proprietary systems for telephony applications. e.g. Sprint, to name one. I hear about other systems such as Sphinx from Carnegie Mellon, and a system from Phillips, both of which I do not know much about and do not know anyone actually using.

What are Slashdot users experiences with the various systems available? Have I overlooked any good candidates? What is the "bleeding edge" in reliable speech recognition? Am I going to be forced to use Windows?

-Stony
Education

Submission + - Bilingualism slows down Alzheimer's/Dementia

Submitted by
Dee
Dee writes: "From the article: "Bilingual people typically develop dementia about four years later than those who only speak one language, a research team from York University in Toronto and other institutions said. The research was conducted on 184 patients with Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia undergoing treatment at the Memory Clinic at the Baycrest Research Centre for Aging and the Brain in Toronto. Researchers analyzed various data on patients including their academic background and occupation. "

This seems like the best motivation I've come across for learning a second language, and it makes sense when you think about it. What with your brain needing to parse information between two seperate formats, just straight up thinking to yourself in different languages seems like it would exercise your grey matter. Maybe it's time to start trying to get the grandparents to learn French!"
Security

Submission + - Testing commercial 2-factor authentication systems

Submitted by Fry-kun
Fry-kun writes: I recently became interested in setting up a 2-factor authentication system for my laptop. With that in mind, I bought a fairly inexpensive USB key. Although it seems to work, I can't bring myself to trust it completely: Kensington claims that the system is secure, but there is no independent security lab analysis of the product. In other words, for all I know, there may be a gaping hole in their security setup.
Worse yet, there are apparently no reviews of the product, no mention of anyone trying to test it and no hardware hackers tried to make it work in Linux, even though it's been out for over 2 years.

How would you go about making sure that a security product does what it claims to?
Programming

Submission + - Why XML Internationalization is important

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: As the world gets flatter and smaller, it becomes riskier to ignore the worldwide audience that exists for your content. It's necessary to understand how to build applications and provide content that you can easily adapt to work in multiple geographic locations and across different languages and cultures. One key benefit of XML is the fact that it was designed for international use. This article explains what they are, how they work, and why you want to use them.
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Pirate Bay and Sealand negotiating

Submitted by
Kawahee
Kawahee writes: "Coming off previous /. coverage of The Pirate Bay's intentions to purchase Sealand following it being put up for sale, The Pirate Bay has revealed on it's website www.buysealand.com that it has entered into negotiations with Sealand. From the post:
The Government of Sealand has initiated negotiation. Tomorrow, the ACFI and Government of Sealand will sit down in the SMTP chambers of the Internets to discuss the future of the micronation.
— We welcome the request and hopefully we can settle on a price. But knowing how hard non-kopimistic people can be to negotiate with, we will go with Plan B if they're not willing to meet our demands, press officer of ACFI says.
BuySealand.com is also now sporting a donation meter, and as of the 15th of January it stands at USD $13,714."

Ballmer Speaks on His Solo Act 196

Posted by CmdrTaco from the but-does-he-do-the-monkey-dance dept.
Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "In his first one-on-one interview since Bill Gates's retirement announcement, Steve Ballmer tells the Wall Street Journal he is bullish on Microsoft's investments in online services, and he dismisses as 'random malarkey' the idea that Microsoft is having trouble hiring and keeping the kind of brilliant employees that have always been the company's competitive weapon. Here's Ballmer on Gates's departure: 'As co-leaders of the business, I could allow Bill to be the full-time champion of innovation. And [now] with me really being the guy who's here every day running the place, I must be the champion of innovation.' And on competing with Google: 'We're going to compete. We're going to be in the online business. We are going to have a core around online. We're going to be excellent. That, I would tell people, to count on...'"
Movies

Journal Journal: Alien Resurrection: What The Hell Are They Saying?

Journal by Mick Ohrberg
I was watching Alien Resurrection the other night, and alas! I also remembered one of my big beefs with that movie. There's one scene where Wren, Gediman and Perez have just visited the queen, and we watch them through the glass from the queens' perspective. They keep on talking, but I'll be damned if I can figure out what they're saying.

EU Prepared to Fine Microsoft $2.5 Million Per Day 659

Posted by Zonk from the i'd-get-on-that-guys dept.
Lord_Slepnir writes "The European Union is unsatisfied with Microsoft's compliance with their anti-trust compliance from 2004, and is preparing to fine them 2 million Euros ($2.5m US) per day until they comply. Under that ruling, Microsoft must open up parts of their operating system to competitors, and change how they bundle Media Player." From the article: "On Monday, Microsoft said it had begun to provide the information Brussels had demanded, but the Commission has signaled the company acted too late. In December, Brussels informed the software giant that it had failed to comply with the original ruling it issued in March 2004."
Music

Journal Journal: MPAA Hacking Torrentspy?

Journal by Mick Ohrberg
C|Net news reports that "A month after accusing the Motion Picture Association of America of conspiring to commit data theft, the operators of a file search engine presented more details regarding the alleged relationship between the MPAA and a man who admits hacking the small company's network."

Stupid Engineering Mistakes 592

Posted by CowboyNeal from the back-to-the-drawing-board dept.
lee1 writes "Wired has bestowed on us a list of the ten worst engineering mistakes of all time. We have the St. Francis Dam designed by 'self-taught' engineer William Mulholland, which burst and wiped out several towns near LA; the Kansas City Hyatt walkway collapse; the DC-10, and more, but my favorite is the one I'd never heard of: a giant tank of molasses that ruptured in 1919 and sent 'waves of molasses up to 15 feet high' through Boston, killing 21."

Microsoft Flirts with Open Source 163

Posted by Zonk from the don't-be-coy dept.
Vin Daryl writes "ZDNet reports on Microsoft's love-hate relationship with open-source software." From the article: "The interoperability lab focuses on getting products from open-source ISVs such as JBoss, to work on the Microsoft platform, he said. 'For example, we often collaborate with JBoss, but in certain areas we might compete with them. It's competition and cooperation,' Hilf explained. 'Over time, as you see the open-source marketplace maturing and becoming more commercial, I think you'll see more of that kind of dynamics. It's not something that's unique to Microsoft,' he said, adding that IBM and Oracle also compete, and at the same time, cooperate with open-source vendors. "

Groklaw's Unix Methods and Concepts Database 19

Posted by Zonk from the groklaw-has-the-best-toys dept.
jbeaupre writes "Groklaw has spawned a new feature that may prove useful well beyond the current SCO litigation. The UNIX Methods and Concepts Database began as a list of books and papers on Groklaw that became so large it demanded organization. The new system was announced and is currently a work in progress."
Communications

Journal Journal: How's Your Online Spelling? 2

Journal by Mick Ohrberg
How much attention do you pay to how your spelling and grammar comes across while typing posts, blogs, emails and such? On a daily basis I see more and more bulletin board posts containing things like "u" instead of "you", misues of "their", "they're" and "there", as well as an occasional "OMG!!1 lolz!!1eleven". Granted, there are some pretty benign misspellings like "teh" instead of "the", while others are a bit more severe. Some (like double-capitalization) are caused by speed, while others (l

Using Laptops to Steal Cars 455

Posted by CmdrTaco from the because-you-shouldn't dept.
Ant writes "Thieves are using laptops/notebooks to steal the most expensive luxury cars. Many of these cars have completely keyless ignitions and door locks, meaning it can all be done wirelessly. Thieves often follow a car until it gets left in a quiet area, and they can steal it in about 20 minutes..."

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