Re: Split TTS and Speech Recognition?

A unified spec hasn't slowed implementations, as there are currently
browsers that implement the ASR portion and not the TTS portion, and
browsers that implement the TTS portion and not the ASR portion.  (And
speech aside, there are many examples where implementors implement a spec
in parts.)

Also, keeping TTS and ASR together avoids the problem of having to sync
things up in the future.  As the unified spec matures, it may have a better
chance of finding a unified home in one of the major W3C groups, such as
HTML.

Glen


On Tue, Oct 8, 2013 at 9:28 AM, Doug Schepers <schepers@w3.org> wrote:

> Hi, folks–
>
> I'd like to propose that the text-to-speech feature be split out from the
> Web Speech API spec; it's more or less orthogonal with the speech
> recognition aspect of the spec, and while there are still open issues that
> are being discussed, I think it's more stable in terms of implementations,
> and could move forward more quickly on its own.
>
> I have been using both TTS and speech recognition in some of my recent
> apps, and I think both are very cool and useful; I think both will be great
> for accessibility, as well. TTS is much simpler, though, and I think we
> could get more implementations right away if we split it out. I really want
> to see both succeed, at their own pace.
>
> (As an aside, I made a "talking calculator" back in 2004 using SVG and the
> Microsoft IE TTS API; it no longer works, but it hints to me that it
> wouldn't be too hard for Microsoft to implement the more modern TTS
> functionality in IE, if the path ahead were clear for them.)
>
> In light of the recent news that the W3C Web Speech WG is not going to be
> formed [1], I think the work should still be done in the Web Speech
> Community Group, though maybe when it's mature enough, it could move to an
> existing W3C WG to become a Recommendation.
>
> (I don't have a strong feeling about which group this might fit in, but a
> few spring to mind: the WebApps WG, the Audio WG, or the HTML WG to take
> advantage of the new CC-BY licensing being experimented on there. It could
> even be its own WG, though that seems like overkill to me.)
>
> If any of this resonates with this group, I'm happy to help with it
> unofficially, with my W3C staff experience. (If it were ultimately moved
> into the Audio WG, then I could give my official help, since that's one of
> my working groups. :P)
>
> [1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/**Public/public-new-work/**
> 2013Oct/0004.html<http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-new-work/2013Oct/0004.html>
>
> Regards-
> -Doug
>
>