Speech recognition tools get standards, respect

The only thing stranger than talking to a computer is having one respond and respond intelligently. But commerciallyacceptable and

Call United or American Airlines for flightarrival information, and your inquiry will be handled by a computer that "listens" and then "speaks" to you. The same holds true for inquiries to Fidelity Investments, weather and sports information in Atlanta and directory information at the University of California/Santa Cruz.

A call to 800/824-6200 lets you speak naturally into a phone and check the status of any of United Airline's 2,400 daily flights. "It has been one of the most successful new projects we've ever undertaken," says Bruce Parker, CIO and senior vice president of United's Information Services Division. "It successfully handles thousands of calls each week and, most importantly, our customers enjoy using it." The system is based on speech recognition technology from SpeechWorks (www. speechworks.com, Boston) and call-automation equipment from InterVoice-Brite (www. intervoice.com, Dallas).