While Windows Phone apps have had native support for speech recognition supplied by Microsoft for some time, that hasn"t been the case for apps made for Windows 8 and the just launched Windows 8.1. That has now changed this week, thanks to effort from the company"s Bing team.
In an update to the Bing developer blog, Microsoft has announced that the same speech recognition functionality that was enabled for Windows Phone apps can now be used by Windows 8, 8.1 and RT apps via the new Bing Speech Recognition Control. The blog states that a SpeechRecognizerUX control can be put in those apps with as little as 10 lines of code, along with a microphone button icon and a TextBlock. It adds:
When the user clicks or taps the mic, they will hear a blip, or "earcon", to signal that it"s time to speak, and an audio meter will show their current volume level. While speaking, the words detected will be shown in the control. When they stop speaking, or hit the Stop button on the speech control, they will get a brief animation and then their words will appear in the TextBlock.
Obviously, the ability to add a way for Windows 8.1 apps to use speech-based features will open up some new avenues that have previously not been available before now. There"s no word on when the first apps that will use these new controls will make their way to the Windows Store.
Source: Microsoft | Image via Microsoft