Re: Overview paragraph

I think what Bjorn is proposing here is a reasonable mindset, and seems 
consistent with what has been done elsewhere: allow for non-standard 
extensions, vendor-specific resources etc., but provide a certain level 
of interoperability on the standard functionality itself.

As often, I find the TTS case easier to grasp. Take the example of a 
request to synthesise a certain text in language "de" with a certain 
vendor-specific voice. Now if that vendor's TTS or that specific voice 
is not available for whatever reason, would we rather have no TTS output 
or another voice in that language speak the text? The same goes for any 
non-standard additional parameters to the vendor-specific TTS engine -- 
if a different engine is used, I think the expected functionality should 
be that the non-standard bits are simply ignored, and the UA + fallback 
engine do their best to realise the request "as best they can".

Cheers,
Marc

On 20.04.11 23:18, Bjorn Bringert wrote:
> We could either prevent applications from trying to use non-standard
> resources with the default speech services, or specify how the
> fallback will work if those resources are not available.
>
> To take a fictional example, if the app specifies something like
> grammar="x-acme:foo", we could either specify that this is an error,
> or that the recognizer should treat this as if the grammar parameter
> was not set at all. I'd prefer the latter, since it makes it easier to
> add new standard resources in the future. This is how many other web
> standards work. For example, unknown elements and attributes in HTML
> are silently ignored, unknown properties, fonts etc are silently
> ignored in CSS.
>
> /Bjorn
>
> On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 9:47 PM, Young, Milan<Milan.Young@nuance.com>  wrote:
>> I am in favor of what Patrick is proposing below.  But I'm still uneasy
>> about the language around the default engines.
>>
>> The problem is that we have no way of limiting how the app might use the
>> default recognizer or synthesizer.  It might, for example, make use of
>> proprietary resources such as grammars, models, or pronunciations.
>>
>> Requiring that such an application behaved even "consistently" across
>> all engines would require an enumeration of all such resources.  Engines
>> would be prevented from extending this set unless they used "outside"
>> channels such as what Patrick outlined below.
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Patrick Ehlen [mailto:pehlen@attinteractive.com]
>> Sent: Wednesday, April 20, 2011 1:44 PM
>> To: Bjorn Bringert
>> Cc: Young, Milan; Raj(Openstream); Satish S; Deborah Dahl; DRUTA, DAN
>> (ATTSI); public-xg-htmlspeech@w3.org
>> Subject: Re: Overview paragraph
>>
>> Agreed. In my view, the point here is to provide a consistent set of
>> methods for content developers to access speech services, whatever their
>> particular capabilities may be.
>>
>> For example, a developer may want to use a recognizer with a proprietary
>> type of model and an instance of that model on a server somewhere. We
>> should provide a method for someone to specify a URI for the recognizer,
>> a URI for the model, and a place to pass parameters that may be
>> particular to that type of model. It would be up to the recognizer to
>> know how to handle the model and its parameters, but not part of our job
>> here.
>>
>>
>> On Apr 20, 2011, at 13:22, "Bjorn Bringert"<bringert@google.com>  wrote:
>>
>>> A consistent user experience is not the same as an identical user
>>> experience. For example, user agents render web pages using varying
>>> window sizes and pixel densities.
>>>
>>> /Bjorn
>>>
>>> On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 9:10 PM, Young, Milan<Milan.Young@nuance.com>
>> wrote:
>>>> All default recognizers must return the same results/timings with the
>> same
>>>> input waveform?  All default synthesizers should return the same
>> samples on
>>>> the same input SSML?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ________________________________
>>>>
>>>> From: Raj(Openstream) [mailto:raj@openstream.com]
>>>> Sent: Wednesday, April 20, 2011 12:57 PM
>>>> To: Satish S; Patrick Ehlen
>>>>
>>>> Cc: Deborah Dahl; Young, Milan; DRUTA, DAN (ATTSI);
>>>> public-xg-htmlspeech@w3.org
>>>> Subject: Re: Overview paragraph
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Yes..I agree with Satish's point...any application that desires to
>> leverage
>>>> advanced/specific features
>>>>
>>>> of an ASR, cannot be guaranteed to be portable..within the scope our
>>>> spec..and applications
>>>>
>>>> that use the default ( LCD ?) recognizer ( not sure if this is what
>> Dan D
>>>> had in mind, by saying
>>>>
>>>> "simple" applications )  should be portable and have consistent user
>>>> experience with conforming
>>>>
>>>> browser/clients.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --Raj
>>>>
>>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>>>
>>>> From: Satish S
>>>>
>>>> To: Patrick Ehlen
>>>>
>>>> Cc: Deborah Dahl ; Young, Milan ; DRUTA, DAN (ATTSI) ;
>>>> public-xg-htmlspeech@w3.org
>>>>
>>>> Sent: Wednesday, April 20, 2011 3:38 PM
>>>>
>>>> Subject: Re: Overview paragraph
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> As an express goal, perhaps we should clearly state that applications
>> that
>>>> use the default/built-in recognizer should be portable across all
>> browsers
>>>> and speech engines. Beyond that, if the web app chooses to use a
>> particular
>>>> engine by specifying a URL it seems ok to rely on extended/additional
>>>> capabilities provided by that engine.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers
>>>> Satish
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 5:00 PM, Patrick Ehlen
>> <pehlen@attinteractive.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Deborah is right that not all speech engines will have the same
>>>> capabilities, but we should strive to provide general
>> parameterizations of
>>>> the potential capabilities wherever possible. Otherwise engine
>> providers
>>>> will need to add their own extensions to the standard, and
>> development will
>>>> get fractured across the lines of browser/engine, as we saw happen
>> with
>>>> earlier Javascript XML handlers, etc.
>>>>
>>>> On Apr 20, 2011, at 8:27, "Deborah Dahl"
>>>> <dahl@conversational-technologies.com>  wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I don't think we can reach the goal of applications being completely
>>>>> portable across speech engines  because speech engines will always
>> have
>>>>> different capabilities, and some of these are unlikely to be in the
>> scope
>>>>> of
>>>>> our API.  For example, engines will handle different languages, some
>>>>> engines
>>>>> will be able to handle larger grammars, some applications will make
>> use of
>>>>> proprietary SLM's, and some applications won't be usable without an
>> engine
>>>>> that has a certain level of accuracy. So  I agree with Milan that
>> the goal
>>>>> is not to standardize functionality across speech engines. I think
>> we
>>>>> should
>>>>> just say " provide the user with a consistent experience across
>> different
>>>>> platforms and devices" and leave it at that.
>>>>>
>>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>>> From: public-xg-htmlspeech-request@w3.org
>> [mailto:public-xg-htmlspeech-
>>>>>> request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Satish S
>>>>>> Sent: Wednesday, April 20, 2011 5:18 AM
>>>>>> To: Young, Milan
>>>>>> Cc: DRUTA, DAN (ATTSI); public-xg-htmlspeech@w3.org
>>>>>> Subject: Re: Overview paragraph
>>>>>>
>>>>>>     >>  provide the user with a consistent experience across
>> different
>>>>>>     platforms and devices irrespective of the speech engine used.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>     This effort is not about standardizing functionality across
>> speech
>>>>>>     engines.  The goal is speech application portability across the
>>>>>>     browsers.  Simple applications MAY be portable across speech
>> engine
>>>>>>     boundaries, but that's not a requirement.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I'd say the API proposal should aim for all applications to be
>> portable
>>>>> across
>>>>>> speech engines. Starting with "may be portable" doesn't seem to fit
>> the
>>>>> spirit
>>>>>> of the web. Any extensions for speech engine specific parameters
>> and
>>>>>> results should be optional.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Bjorn Bringert
>>> Google UK Limited, Registered Office: Belgrave House, 76 Buckingham
>>> Palace Road, London, SW1W 9TQ
>>> Registered in England Number: 3977902
>>>
>>
>
>
>

-- 
Dr. Marc Schröder, Senior Researcher at DFKI GmbH
Project leader for DFKI in SSPNet http://sspnet.eu
Team Leader DFKI TTS Group http://mary.dfki.de
Editor W3C EmotionML Working Draft http://www.w3.org/TR/emotionml/
Portal Editor http://emotion-research.net

Homepage: http://www.dfki.de/~schroed
Email: marc.schroeder@dfki.de
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Postal address: DFKI GmbH, Campus D3_2, Stuhlsatzenhausweg 3, D-66123 
Saarbrücken, Germany
--
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Received on Thursday, 21 April 2011 06:40:53 UTC