From battery powered tablet computers to Internet connected smart phones, advances in networking and electronic miniaturization have created more ways to access Internet services and data than ever before. Old problems can now be solved with new mobile computing technologies. The ubiquity of access to data and services via Internet Web browsers has enabled large scale integration of business processes and workers.

Anytime and anywhere access to your business is a great marriage of Internet technology and IT but it creates a new problem that requires a new solution. Enter the world of mobile speech recognition.

Battery-powered handheld devices are mobile and miniature. Wireless networks untether workers from offices and data centers creating virtually anywhere access to data and services. But something happened when computing left the desktop: the keyboard and mouse stayed behind. Filling out forms and moving from one application to another on a mobile device becomes a tedious process of pointing and clicking with fingers on a small touch screen, or virtual keyboard.

So while mobile e-business can transform business processes and bring access to more places, smaller screens and compact devices create a user interface problem.

Using Web applications on mobile devices begs for easier ways of entering and accessing data. Smaller screens mean less space for drop down lists and links. Adding speech input and output as a natural interface to a Web application can solve many user problems brought on by the advances of mobile computing. It means hands and eyes can be busy doing other things.

Joining speech recognition with Web applications blends the best of both worlds and can allow individuals to get the most out of computing. This multimodal approach to computing is a perfect union of user interface technology that provides alternate ways of entering and accessing information, including speech, keyboard, handwriting recognition and visual data output.

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In form-centric industries like healthcare and insurance, mobile devices can put data acquisition and reporting at the bedside, roadside or doorstep of a disaster relief mission. Multimodal interaction can mean faster access, fewer errors and less stress because data entry and retrieval is natural and accurate. Adding speech recognition to mobile applications can be done with the help of new technologies that allow mixing the Web and speech programming environments together.

Just Add Voice
XHTML plus Voice, or X+V for short, is a multimodal Web application programming language based on existing Web standards. X+V applications can be created with the IBM Multimodal Toolkit for WebSphere Studio. This toolkit adds plug-ins to the WebSphere Studio Site Developer or WebSphere Studio Application Developer toolsets so developers can easily turn existing WebSphere applications into multimodal ones. That is, the tools enable developers to "Just Add Voice."

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Because X+V uses the same tools and techniques that WebSphere programmers use today, the time it takes to add voice is much shorter than building a whole new application. With an XHTML application already working, you're well on your way to having a working multimodal application for your WebSphere deployment.

As with all Web technologies, the Web browser is a key component in delivering your application to users. IBM WebSphere Everyplace Multimodal Environment is a suite of Web browsers that support the X+V language and run on a variety of mobile devices, tablet computers, laptops and desktops.

With IBM WebSphere Everyplace Multimodal Environment, your multimodal applications can now deliver a better user experience. Users can be saved from the hassle of scrolling through long lists and filling in fields when their hands are busy or their devices too small. Input and output can be facilitated by voice when the situation or user preference warrants it, while navigation around and among applications can be done directly with voice instead of the usual clicking up and down menu hierarchies.

Finally, with IBM WebSphere Everyplace Multimodal Environment, users are able to fill in more than one field at a time just by speaking and they'll be automatically asked for any information they may have missed.

Prior approaches to speech enabling applications tried to create new "one size fits all" language and technology. But like most things that try to be all things to all people, they don't do any one thing well. X+V blends the best of both worlds together in a way that makes sense for users, application developers and business. And, because it's built on Web standards, X+V applications can be fully compatible with Web browsers that don't yet have X+V support.

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Step Outside the Box
Beyond making the usual data input easier in a mobile world, new ideas sometime create new ways of doing things. In hospitals, warehouses or the factory floor, hands-free access to data can mean hands free to care to for a patient, handle stock, or control equipment. Eyes-free access to information alerts and queries that can be read aloud means eyes can be available to examine a patient, find a part, or perform a repair.

The possibilities extend beyond handheld devices. Embedded software technology and wireless computing open up new possibilities for all sorts of devices to be connected to customized services and data.

For instance, sophisticated bedside care equipment operated locally but connected to the hospital back-end can enable real-time collaboration between medical experts a world apart. For healthcare, that means patient information is available to specialists who need it virtually anywhere and anytime. From smart phones, to PDAs, to tablets, wireless connectivity links the back end to the front desk - wherever that is. Accurate collection of patient information, inventory, order status, diagnosis, and treatment can mean better results faster. And that can mean better business.

Not everyone may be able to spell "pneumonia" or be able to read it on a handwritten patient chart. But if it can be spoken, mobile computing combined with multimodal interaction can create whole new information gathering, access and collaboration possibilities to help transform your business.