Speech-driven "Anywhere-anytime" data entry..

 

 A research team with the Canadian National Research Council's Institute for Information Technology (NRC-IIT) is working on a way to enter data using speech; they've created a multimodal field data entry (MFDE) application to help with data collection during concrete inspections. The researchers say that if workers are are using instruments or taking measurements they can use speech to enter data or information at the same time.


 While background noise was somewhat of a problem the researchers have gone back to the drawing board to identify a better microphone for the application. Even with the noise issue respondents claimed they were able to complete tasks faster while at the same time being able to be more aware of their environment.

 They've worked on actual mobile microphone improvements; Their research won "Best Paper" at the prestigious British Human-Computer Interaction conference, HCI 2007 about microphone performance in noisy ambience.

 They are also seeking the best speech engine for noisy environments:
Per NRC IIT:
"We also plan to look at different speech recognition engines to see if we can improve the accuracy at higher noise levels."