Singing with Opera
You can talk to your browser…or, at least, the next version of Opera. The Norwegian browser will use IBM’s Embedded ViaVoice to let users navigate and fill-in forms just by speaking. Using the proposed XHTML+Voice (X+V) specification, the voice-enabled — or multimodal — browser neatly hits three markets:
- power users (e.g., presenting a slide show);
- those reliant on screen readers or who have poor manual dexterity;
- and Opera’s key market focus: mobile (e.g., cellphone) users.
IBM is supposedly offering a trial download of this version of Opera, but I’ve been unable to find it.