Re: VoiceXML 2.1 Status Update

Thanks to Matt for putting together a nice analysis of the 19 proposals 
for VoiceXML 2.1.

Let's begin the discussion during Tuesday's telecon by asking if anyone 
wishes to make any changes to the analysis.

It looks like items 1-8 satisfy the four criteria from the Redmond F2F, 
while the remaining items each fail the criteria in one or more ways. 
 May I suggest we begin the approval process by voting on the following 
two questions:

1.  Should items 1-8 be included in the VoiceXML 2.1 specification?
2.  Should items 9-19 be included from the VoiceXML 2.1 specification?

If we can not quickly reach concensus, then we will consider the items 
individually.

Regards,

-Jim

MattO wrote:

>Please see attached.
>
>Matt
>  
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> VoiceXML 2.1 Feature Status, August 7, 2003
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At the [REDMOND_F2F] <#f2f>, as a result of reviewing [FEASIBILITY] 
> <#fease>, the Voice Browser Working Group voted to pursue a VoiceXML 
> 2.1 specification on the W3C Recommendation Track as described in 
> [W3C_PROCESS] <#w3c_proc>. The first 6 features listed in the table 
> below were presented at [REDMOND_F2F] <#f2f> as part of [FEASIBILITY] 
> <#fease>. The additional 13 features in the table were submitted by 
> several VBWG members subsequently.
>
> The columns in the table correspond to the criteria agreed upon at 
> [REDMOND_F2F] <#f2f>:
>
>     * Must already be implemented by at least two companies
>       (Implementation Report requirements).
>     * Documentation must already exist (complete specification).
>     * Important use-case that cannot be implemented using VoiceXML 2.0.
>     * Orthogonal to VoiceXML 2.0.
>
>
> Id Feature Impls Doc Use case Orthogonal
> 1 Reference grammars dynamically by adding an expr attribute to 
> <grammar>. 4 (BeVocal, Nuance, Tellme, VoiceGenie, VoxPilot) Yes. See 
> 3.1 
> <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-voice-wg/2003Jun/att-0038/feasibility.html#grammar_expr> 
> in [FEASIBILITY] <#fease>. Yes. Enables parameterized referencing of 
> grammars dynamically w/o server-side round trip. Yes. Adds attribute 
> to <grammar>.
> 2 Detect where barge-in occurred in prompt playback using SSML <mark> 
> and shadow variables. 3 (BeVocal, Tellme, VoiceGenie) Yes. See 3.2 
> <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-voice-wg/2003Jun/att-0038/feasibility.html#mark> 
> in [FEASIBILITY] <#fease>. Yes. Enables programmatic access to 
> barge-in data. Yes. Leverage SSML <#ref_ssml> <mark> and new 
> properties on application.lastresult$.
> 3 Reference scripts dynamically by adding an expr attribute to 
> <script>. 4 (BeVocal, Tellme, VoiceGenie, VoxPilot) Yes. See 3.3 
> <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-voice-wg/2003Jun/att-0038/feasibility.html#script_expr> 
> in [FEASIBILITY] <#fease>. Yes. Enables parameterized referencing of 
> scripts dynamically w/o server-side round trip. Yes. Adds attribute to 
> <script>.
> 4 Enable parameterized fetching of XML without requiring a dialog 
> transition by adding <data>. 2 (BeVocal, Tellme) Yes. See 3.4 
> <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-voice-wg/2003Jun/att-0038/feasibility.html#data> 
> in [FEASIBILITY] <#fease> and [DATA] <#data>. Yes. Enables seamless 
> integration with enterprise back-end XML data while maintaining 
> independence from service logic. Improve page cacheability. Yes. Adds 
> <data> element. Clean programmatic access via ECMAScript.
> 5 Allow dynamic prompt concatenation through automatic iteration over 
> an array. 2 (BeVocal, Nuance, Tellme) Yes. See 3.5 
> <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-voice-wg/2003Jun/att-0038/feasibility.html#prompt_concat> 
> in [FEASIBILITY] <#fease>. Yes. Enables developers to naturally 
> concatenate prompts dynamically without requiring a state transition 
> or a round-trip to the server for a complete VoiceXML document Impoves 
> page cacheability. Yes, if the second option (3.5.2 
> <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-voice-wg/2003Jun/att-0038/feasibility.html#prompt_concat>) 
> is selected from [FEASIBILITY] <#fease>.
> 6 Record user utterances while attempting recognition. 4 (BeVocal, 
> Nuance, Tellme, Speechworks, VoxPilot) Yes. See 3.6 
> <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-voice-wg/2003Jun/att-0038/feasibility.html#reco_reco> 
> of [FEASIBILITY] <#fease>. Yes. Enables conditional recording of an 
> utterance while perform recognition. Yes. Adds a standard name/value 
> to the <property> element and three additional properties to 
> application.lastresult$.
> 7 Improve CCXML integration by adding namelist attribute to 
> <disconnect> Yes. 3 (BeVocal, Loquendo, Vocalocity) Yes. See 
> attachment "V2.1 Loquendo Proposal1.html " in [LOQUENDO_PR1] <#loq1>. 
> Yes. Improve integration with [CCXML] <#ccxml>. Yes. Add attribute to 
> <disconnect>.
> 8 Add type attribute to <transfer> to support transfer types other 
> than 'bridged' and 'blind' including a supervised blind transfer. Yes. 
> 3+ (BeVocal, Loquendo, Nuance, VoiceGenie) Yes. See attachment 
> "Proposal4 Complete.zip" in [LOQUENDO_PR1] <#loq1>. Yes. Supervised 
> blind transfer would allow better 'error' handling / caller experience 
> Yes. Add attribute to <transfer>.
>   Comments:
>
>     * Concern that some telephony transport protocols may not support
>       the feature.
>
> 9 Allow a recording to be appended. Unspecified. Yes. See attachment 
> "record.html" in [COMVERSE_PR0] <#comv> No. The alternative is to 
> submit each recording to an HTTP server and perform the append on the 
> server side. Yes. Add attributes to <record>.
>   Comments:
>
>     * The feature requires the VoiceXML programmer to specify a
>       destination to a local file.
>     * Several security concerns were raised regarding this
>       requirement: ([0] <#r0>, [1] <#r1>, [2] <#r2>).
>
> 10 Allow an audio file to be played back beginning from an offset. 
> Yes. (Nuance, VoiceGenie, and Voxpilot) Yes. See attachment 
> "audio_offset.html" in [REHOR_PR0] <#ken0>. No. The alternative is to 
> use audio expr to reference a server-side script 
> <http://www.voicexmlreview.org/Jul2003/columns/Jul2003_speak_listen.html> 
> passing the desired offset as a parameter. No. the markup cannot be 
> translated into valid [SSML] <#ssml>.
>   Comments:
>
>     * Should not be exposed via ([3] <#r3>,[4] <#r4>, [5] <#r5>)
>     * Should only apply to and not to to avoid conflicts with bargein,
>       SSML, ... ([3] <#r3>, [4] <#r4>)
>     * Breaks streaming of content without user perceived latency, a
>       core requirement.
>     * Can't assume use of feature would only apply to cached or
>       prefetched content. ([6] <#r6>, [7] <#r7>, [8] <#r8>)
>
> 11 Add cond attribute to <log>. Yes. 2 (Loquendo, VoiceGenie) Yes. See 
> attachment "V2.1 Loquendo Proposal2.html" in [LOQUENDO_PR1] <#loq1>. 
> No. The alternative is to wrap the <log> in an <if>. [9] <#r9> Yes. 
> Add attribute to <log>.
>   Comments:
>
>     * Wrap <log> in <if>. [13]
>
> 12 Add fetchaudio attribute to <object>. No. 1 (Loquendo) Yes. See 
> attachment "V2.1 Loquendo Proposal3.html" in [LOQUENDO_PR1] <#loq1>. 
> Yes. For parity with other elements that fetch content (e.g. 
> subdialog) Yes. Add attribute to <object>.
> 13 Speaker verification/identification. 1 (Nuance) None submitted.1 
> Yes. See [NUANCE_PR0] <#nuan0>. Yes. Adds one element and some 
> properties to application.lastresult$.
> 14 Voice enrolled grammars. 1 (Nuance) None submitted.1 Yes. See 
> [NUANCE_PR0] <#nuan0>. Yes. Adds three elements.
> 15 Simple dynamic grammar generation. 1 (Nuance) None submitted.1 Yes. 
> See [NUANCE_PR0] <#nuan0>. Maybe. Adds no new elements (just adds 
> additional locations where an existing element can occur), but extends 
> inline grammars.
> 16 Re-recognition 1 (Nuance) None submitted.1 Yes. See [NUANCE_PR0] 
> <#nuan0>. Yes. Adds attribute to <field>
> 17 Task completion tags 1 (Nuance) None submitted.1 Yes. See 
> [NUANCE_PR0] <#nuan0>. Yes. Adds two elements.
> 18 Source in properties. 1 (Nuance) None submitted.1 Yes. See 
> [NUANCE_PR0] <#nuan0>. Yes. Adds attribute to .
> 19 nbest 1 (Nuance) None submitted.1 Yes. See [NUANCE_PR0] <#nuan0>. 
> Maybe. Adds one new element within inline grammars.
>
>
> 1 Internal specifications and product documentation available from Nuance.
>
> References
> [CCXML] Voice Browser Call Control: CCXML Version 1.0 
> <http://www.w3.org/TR/ccxml/#dialogEventsDialogDisconnect> June 2003.
> [COMVERSE_PR0] VoiceXML 2.1 Record Append Proposal 
> <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-voice-wg/2003Jun/0049.html> 
> June 2003.
> [DATA] data 
> <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-voice-wg/2001May/att-0003/data.html><DATA> 
> proposal May 2001.
> [FEASIBILITY] VoiceXML 2.1 Feasibility Study 
> <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-voice-wg/2003Jun/att-0038/feasibility.html> 
> June 2003.
> [REHOR_PR0] Audio Offset proposal for VoiceXML 2.1 
> <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-voice-wg/2003Jun/0073.html> 
> June 2003.
> [REDMOND_F2F] Voice Browser Working Group F2F, Redmond, WA 
> <http://www.w3.org/Voice/Group/2003/mins-redmond-2003.html> June 2003.
> [SSML] Speech Synthesis Markup Language 
> <http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-speech-synthesis-20021202/> December 2002.
> [LOQUENDO_PR0] Loquendo VoiceXML 2.1 feature requests 0 
> <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-voice-wg/2003Jun/0117.html> 
> June 2003.
> [LOQUENDO_PR1] Loquendo VoiceXML 2.1 feature requests 1 
> <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-voice-wg/2003Jul/0082.html> 
> July 2003.
> [NUANCE_PR0] Nuance VoiceXML 2.1 feature requests 
> <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-voice-wg/2003Aug/0000.html> 
> July 2003.
> [W3C_PROCESS] W3C Process Document 
> <http://www.w3.org/2003/06/Process-20030618/> June 2003.
>
> [0] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-voice-wg/2003Jun/0050.html 
> June 2003.
> [1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-voice-wg/2003Jun/0052.html 
> June 2003.
> [2] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-voice-wg/2003Jun/0054.html 
> June 2003.
> [3] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-voice-wg/2003Jun/0075.html 
> June 2003.
> [4] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-voice-wg/2003Jun/0077.html 
> June 2003.
> [5] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-voice-wg/2003Jun/0078.html 
> June 2003.
> [6] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-voice-wg/2003Jun/0079.html 
> June 2003.
> [7] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-voice-wg/2003Jun/0083.html 
> June 2003.
> [8] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-voice-wg/2003Jun/0106.html 
> June 2003.
> [9] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Member/w3c-voice-wg/2003Jun/0118.html 
> June 2003.

Received on Friday, 8 August 2003 10:08:51 UTC