Yesterday I was wondering how few sites I visited last week had implement speech to text and is gone today while I was using Firefox. Now I must admit, I had no idea that Google Chrome 11 has a wonderful speech analysis enabled by default with a few extra attributes added to a standard input box you can enable speech input.
It really is that simple! You can add speech input to any input element by simply using the x-webkit-speech attribute; and as far as I’m aware only in very recent versions of Google Chrome. The Speech API seems new and is still a draft, so it will be a while before it’s fully adopted by other browser vendors.
The results will depend on your accent and what you’re saying. In general, though, regularly-used English words and numbers are parsed surprisingly well given that the system isn’t trained to recognize your particular dulcet tones.
Simple HTML code required for speech input:
The x-webkit-speech attribute can be used on any HTML5 input element with a type of text, number, tel, or search. Unfortunately, it’s not permitted on textarea fields. I suspect that’s to stop people using it for long dictations which could result in inaccurate results or high memory usage.
The following JavaScript code can be used to test whether speech input is enabled:
For most users who are unable to type are already using desktop software to dictate computer commands, speech input-enabled web apps could help disabled users enjoy cloud computing. If you are looking for more details on its implementation, checkout this link Speech Input API
So, are you ready to implement this for all your search boxes?
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