Re: Feedback on Roadmap

Arun, For what it's worth, I'd like to hear a presentation on
VoiceSite, depending on scheduling.

Good comments ( B .  Costs  [Section 6.1.5], etc.). Thanks.

--Richard

On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 3:09 PM, Arun Kumar <kkarun@in.ibm.com> wrote:
> Hi Stephane and All,
>
> I have few comments about couple of sections in the roadmap as it stands
> now, along with possible corrections.
>
>
> A.  Access Challenges: Accessibility  [Section 6.1.1]
>
> The first paragraph mentions that Accessibility is at least as equally
> critical in Developing Countries as in Developed Countries. The WHO
> reference about Visually Impaired people in developing countries that
> follows in the next statement, however, suggests that the problem of
> accessibility is probably more severe in Developing Countries. Reasons
> include un-affordability of expensive assistive devices and technologies,
> non-english speaking population and illiteracy etc. Further, as in the
> visually impaired case referred above, a bulk of population needing but
> deprived of such technologies reside in developing countries.
>
>
>
> B .  Costs  [Section 6.1.5]
>
> It is mentioned that Voice applications use the voice channel and it is
> costliest as the charges are based upon the length of the call.  With the
> innovative strategies and value-adds that several telecom operators are
> coming up with, this may not longer remain an issue. For instance, a couple
> of major telecom providers (especially Reliance communications) in India
> offer free calls to either a limited set of phone numbers or to callers
> within the same telco's network or during non-peak hours (such as in the
> night).
>
> http://www.efytimes.com/e1/fullnews.asp?edid=19268
> http://www.efytimes.com/e1/fullnews.asp?edid=15716
>
> Most recently, another operator - Tata Indicom, has started offering
> pay-per-call charging model, making call charges free of per-minute rate.
> http://teck.in/pay-per-call-prepaid-plan-of-tata-indicom-and-tata-teleservices.html
>
>
>
>
>
> C.  Technologies Section  (Section 7)
>
> 1)
> A major challenge listed in the Weakness of Voice Applications sub-section
> is related to expertise required for building voice applications, i.e.
> expertise required to use voice modality on mobiles to provide an authoring
> platform. As rightly mentioned in the roadmap, authoring of a voice
> application has not been an easy task. However, the state-of-the-art here
> has already advanced. This should probably be reflected in the document..
> Using the Spoken Web system (mentioned in Examples in Section 7.1),
> ordinary phone subscribers can create their own Voice applications in a
> matter or few minutes. These voice application creators can be non-IT
> literate or even completely illiterate and can create the applications in
> their own local language using an ordinary lowest end mobile phone.
>
> More details on the system are available in the articles mentioned below
> and I would be happy to give a 15-20 min. live demo of VoiceSite creation
> technology in the next conference call, if there is interest.
>
> [a]  VOISERV: Creation and Delivery of Converged Services through Voice for
> Emerging Economies
> https://domino.research.ibm.com/comm/research_people.nsf/pages/arun_kumar..pubs.html/$FILE/VOISERV-IEEE-WowMom2007.pdf.
>
>
> [b] VoiKiosk : Content Creation and Dissemination by-and-for Users in Rural
> Areas
>
>
> http://mobileactive.org/research/voikiosk-content-creation-and-dissemination-and-users-rural-areas
>
>
> [c] FOLKSOMAPS - Towards Community Driven Intelligent Maps for Developing
> Regions
>
> http://www.researchintouse.com/downloads/spokenweb/Folksomaps_-_ICTD_09_-_April_09.pdf.
>
>
>
>
> 2)
> A concern related to user issues is the challenge of discoverability of
> voice applications. While complete automated indexing of voice applications
> and search is still in its infancy, it is also not impossible for someone
> to discover available services offered as voice applications. Manually or
> semi-automatically created directories could provide phone numbers of
> various businesses registered with them. This could be done either through
> call center operations as in http://www.JustDial.com or through voice
> search as being done by Ubona (
> http://www.webyantra.net/2007/11/08/ubonavoice-search-engine-for-bangalore/
> ) and GOOG-4-1-1 (http://www.google.com/goog411/ ).  Here, the phone
> numbers returned would actually represent voice applications deployed
> against them.
>
> Such directory services can very well be used for discoverability of voice
> applications. This is similar to the initial pre-search engine days of the
> web when online sources such as Yahoo Directory containing categorized
> content represented the primary source of discovering information on the
> web. So, directories can serve the purpose of discoverability while search
> technologies for Voice applications mature.
>
>
>
> 3)
> Another issue mentioned is that the lifetime of the information is short
> and cannot be stored and shared. Technologically it is not difficult to
> provide. I believe such applications are not in vogue only because
> businesses and other organizations have not yet realized the need to
> explore the use of such means. This is changing too. For instance, in an
> ongoing commercial pilot described at
> http://hci.stanford.edu/research/otalo/ , Development Support Center (DSC)
> - an NGO in Western Indian state of Gujarat runs a bi-weekly community
> radio program about Agricultural best practices. It has an estimated
> viewership of 5,00,000 farmers. It makes use of a VoiceSite (a voice
> application in Spoken Web) that acts as a complimentary feedback channel
> for the radio program and also serves as an archive of those radio programs
> to be listened to later (by calling up the VoiceSite). In addition, expert
> advice given to farmers, questions asked by others as well as discussion
> threads among farmers themselves are captured and automatically made
> available on the VoiceSite.
>
>
> 4)
> I agree with the suggestion in Future Directions subsection, that hosting
> services similar to Tell Me are needed for large scale deployment of Voice
> applications. Along with that we also need packaged software/hardware
> 'appliances' to let individuals setup their own low scale voice application
> creation and hosting using desktop PCs and a couple of incoming phone
> lines.
>
>
>
> thanks and regards
> Arun Kumar
> IBM Research - India
> kkarun@in.ibm.com
>
> Spoken Web (aka World Wide Telecom Web) :
> http://domino.research.ibm.com/comm/research_people.nsf/pages/arun_kumar.WWTW.html
>
> "Websites that use the spoken word will empower the illiterate" -
> (http://www.economist.com/sciencetechnology/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13855374
>  )
>
>
>
>
>
>             Stephane Boyera
>             <boyera@w3.org>
>             Sent by:                                                   To
>             public-mw4d-reque         Renjish Kumar
>             st@w3.org                 <renjish.kumar@gmail.com>
>                                                                        cc
>                                       public-mw4d@w3.org
>             08/27/2009 07:57                                      Subject
>             PM                        Re: Feedback till section 4 and
>                                       objectives revised version
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Dear Renjish,
>
> thanks a lot for your extensive review o fthe first parts. i integrated
> most of your corrections in the documents except few of them:
> - the change in the structure (respective place of scope and exec summary)
> - your proposed objectives section, as you were using an old version and
> not the latest one provided by mira.
> - the change in the audience section
>
> the first and the third point should be discussed during the september 7
> teleconf to see where is the agreement in the group.
> Concerning the second point, please review the new objective session
> provided by mira and online now.
>
> Thanks again for the work
>
> Stephane
>
> Renjish Kumar a écrit :
>> Hello,
>>    Attached are my comments and corrections (as track changes) on the
>> roadmap doc till section 4. A revised version of the objectives section
>> is also attached for your reference.....
>>
>> I am still in the process of going through the entire document.... sorry
>> for this late entry after a long break... I was pressed for time due to
>> some personal emergency during the last couple of months... but hope
>> better late than never....
>>
>> Regards
>> Renjish
>>
>>
>
> --
> Stephane Boyera                      stephane@w3.org
> W3C                                              +33 (0) 5 61 86 13 08
> BP 93                                            fax: +33 (0) 4 92 38 78 22
> F-06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex,
> France
>
>
>
>
>
>



-- 
Richard Scullin
Founder, President
MobileEd.org
richard@MobileEd.org
twitter.com/richardscullin
+1 (413) 884-2995

Received on Thursday, 17 September 2009 19:35:29 UTC