Interaction between Academia and Microsoft in Speech and Language Systems

1. Interaction betweenAcademia and Microsoft in Speech and Language Systems Kentaro Toyama Microsoft Research Chandar Sundaram, Andy Abbar, Alex Acero, Mythreyee Ganapathy, Raveesh Gupta SPLASH 2004

3. Interaction betweenAcademia and Microsoft in Speech and Language Systems Kentaro Toyama Microsoft Research Chandar Sundaram, Andy Abbar, Alex Acero, Mythreyee Ganapathy, Raveesh Gupta SPLASH 2004

4. Academia and Microsoft Points of interaction for speech & language: • Academic Developer Program • MSDN AA -- Speech SDK • Future Activities • Localization • Local Language Program • Microsoft Research • Natural Language Processing • Speech • University Relations

5. Academic Developer Program

6. MSDN Academic Alliance • Subscription to MSDN valid for entire department • Curriculum Tools • Over 800 hours of curriculum materials • Submit curricula you’ve developed • Speech SDK bundled with MSDN

7. Future Offerings • Visual Studio 2005 Express Edition • “The Spoke” • MSDN Academic Sessions • Imagine Cup 2005 • Project Portal

8. http://msdn.microsoft.com/academic/

9. Localization

10. Localization Click Computer Challenges: • Time • ~2 languages per year • Complexity • People: linguists, computer users, developers, political scientists, translators, regional experts, etc. • Technology: keyboard drivers, character set standardization, fonts, currency symbols, glossary, translation of help files, etc. • Cost • Business case not always present • Customer involvement • Microsoft should not unilaterally determine computer terminology

11. Local Language Program The Local Language Program: • ~40 languages per year • Localizes UI for Windows and Office • In India: • Hindi is done • Telegu, Tamil, Kannada, Gujarati on its way • Resulting glossary, Language Interface Pack available to public at no cost • Involvement by governments and universities critical!

12. http://members.microsoft.com/wincg/

13. Microsoft Research

14. Microsoft Research • Founded in 1991 • Staff of over 650 in over 50 areas • Internationally recognized research teams • 5 lab locations around the world • Research groups in • Natural Language Processing • Speech • Machine Learning • Search • Separate University Relations group • India: Mythreyee Ganapathy (mythg@microsoft.com)

15. Impact on Product • Text-to-speech engine (Windows) • Command and Control (Windows) • Smart Tags (Office) • Grammar Checker (Office) • IntelliShrink text compression (Office) • Dictation (Office) • Mandarin Chinese data entry (Office) • Spam filter (MSN/Exchange) • Speech API (SAPI) • Speech Server

16. Research Philosophy • University organizational model • Flat structure, critical mass groups • Open research environment • Publications strongly encouraged • Conference attendance high • Daily lectures by visiting researchers • Support for university research • Nearly 15% of basic research budget directly invested in universities • Lab grants, research grants, fellowships, etc. • Internships for students

17. Text to Speech with Prosody • MSR Asia’s Mulan project • “The Speech Group in Microsoft Research Asia is conducting research in voice technology, such as speech recognition, speech synthesis, and speech-enabled information search.”

18. y1[n] y1[n] z1[n] z1[n] h11[n] h11[n] h12[n] h12[n] h21[n] h21[n] y2[n] y2[n] z2[n] z2[n] h22[n] h22[n] + + + + Source Separation • Idea: Estimate filters h11[n] and h12[n] that maximize p(z1[n]|) where  is a HMM. • Approximate HMM by a Gaussian Mixture Model with LPC parameters => EM algorithm with a linear set of equations

19. Multimodal Map

20. University Relations • Liaison to universities • Emphasis on curriculum and research • Periodic workshops • Faculty Summit in Redmond (July) • India UR manager • Mythreyee Ganapathy (mythg@microsoft.com)

21. http://research.microsoft.com

22. Thank you!kentoy@microsoft.com