1. SALT & The Microsoft Speech Application SDK
VMK Lecture
Zheng-Hua Tan
SMC – Speech and Multimedia Communication
Aalborg University
18/11/2018

2. SALT – Speech Application Language Tags
is a markup language encompassing extensions of HTML and others as opposite to VoiceXML which is a complete markup language in its own right
therefore, can either add speech interface to regular Web pages for multimodal applications or make speech-only interface for telephony applications or separate them for cross-modal applications, where a single application page can be reused for different modes on different devices, e.g. GUI-only and speech-only.
is designed with the philosophy that speech is introduced into the well-established GUI interface as one additional modality but not more than any others.
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3. SALT – cont. The core of SALT
Speech input <listen> (for ASR configuration, execution & post-processing, and recording)
<grammar> (for specifying input grammar resources)
<bind> (for processing of recognition results)
<record> (for recording audio input)
Speech output <prompt> (for TTS configuration and prompt playing)
DTMF input <dtmf> (for configuration and control of DTMF collection)
Simple Message EXtension <smex> (for general purpose communication with platform components)
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4. SALT – cont.
An example:
<salt:listen id=“travel” onnoreco=“noReco()”>
<salt:grammar src=“./city.grxml” />
<salt:bind targetElement=“textBoxCity”
targetAttribute=“value”
value=“/result/cityName” />
</salt:listen>
<salt:prompt id=“alert”> I did not understand you. </salt:prompt>
<script>
function noReco() {
alert.Start(); }
</script>
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5. The SALT reference architecture
SALT – cont.
The SALT reference architecture
Not for any particular device type, but rather for a range of architectural scenarios.
As a consequence, a range of devices from PCs to handheld devices to the telephone can be speech-enabled.
Multimodal Clients PC
(Local speech engines)
Handheld computer
HTML + SALT +
Script
PSTN/VoIP
Phones
Web Server
Telephony Server
Remote
Speech Server
(ASR and TTS)
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6. The Microsoft® Speech Application SDK
The SDK “is a set of development tools based on the SALT specification that will make it easier and faster for developers to incorporate speech functionality into Web applications ”
Features:
Microsoft ASP.NET Speech Controls
Visual Studio .NET Speech Development Tools
Speech Add-in for Microsoft IE
Newsgroup: microsoft.public.netspeechsdk
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7. field trails
A number of field trails in the area of speech enabled access to network hosted applications at AAU
personal assistant (PA)
vehicle registration database on-line query service
medical application
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8. Personal Assistant Functionality Speech enabled Device-identification
Scheduled Calendar
Address book
Speech enabled
SALT
Speech .Net
Device-identification
PC, laptop PC
PDA
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9. Personal Assistant – cont.
Access via
Fixed/wireless networks
IP network
Mixed network
Seamless transfer
across networks AND terminals
Accessibility from anytime, anywhere
PA Server
IP-based
Core Network
GPRS
Access Network
WLAN AP
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10. Personal Assistant – cont.
FILL OUT: speech input in order of: Date of the activity, Start time, End time, Type and to add a contact  if necessary.
SET followed by  DATE, START TIME, END TIME, TYPE. The user can now the requested field.
ADD CONTACT. To add a contact to the contact list .
SAVE. Saves the activity.
BACK. Returns to the Calendar page
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11. Personal Assistant – cont.
Accessible at
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12. References
The SALT Specification and The SALT Technical White Paper.
The Microsoft Speech Application SDK.
Kuansan Wang, “SALT: A Spoken Language Interface For Web-Based Multimodal Dialog Systems,” ICSLP-02, Denver, USA, September 2002.
Hansen H., Pannet Y., Sørensen T. and Tseveenochir A., ”Speech Enabled Web Application Using MS Speech .NET”, Student Project Report, Aalborg University, May 2003.
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