In the 21st Century, we increasingly want to simplify the control of the real things that affect our daily lives! Don't you feel it's just about time we could simply talk with computers and get them to handle some of the everyday house automation tasks -- lights, doors, gates, curtains, televisions, music and other domestic appliances? Or even make the information super-highway slicker by talking with you and telling you about the information you requested to be retrieved from the web? Think of all the time and inconvenience you could save -- no more need to install yourself at a desk and fumble about with keyboard and mouse. Well now you can! This book details a project which will enable you to instruct your computer using your voice and get it to control electrical devices, tell you the time, get your share values, get the weather etc. and speak it all back to you in a natural human voice. It shows you the technology to interface with your computer using voice. Also, you will find that in using voice as an interface your computer gains a novel persona of its own. On calling the name we gave our computer, the machine listens furtively, responding appropriately and politely acknowledging us using a preceding phrase we gave it. The book guides you through practical speech recognition, speech annunciation and control of really useful peripherals, like the above. Software is explained in depth and consists of short tasks in VB, Perl and XML, interfacing with Microsoft SAPI and an extraordinarily human-like voice (which was purchased). Some software experience is desirable; Control hardware consists of a low cost mains I/O relay solution which interfaces to the PC using usb and was purchased, although there is nothing to stop you developing your own solution. Some experience with wiring and soldering is desirable. If you are interested in the practical technology of interfacing with machines using voice, such as talking with your own PC, then this book is your guide.

If you’ve dreamed about having a customized multimedia PC or one tricked out for your favorite games, build your own and make your dreams come true! Build Your Own PC Do-It-Yourself For Dummies makes it easy. Not only is building your own PC a really rewarding project, it can also save you a nice chunk of cash. This step-by-step guide helps you decide what you need, teaches you what all those computer terms mean, and tells you exactly how to put the pieces together. It shows you: What tools you need (not as many as you might think!) All about operating systems How to install CD and DVD drives The scoop on sound and video, and how to put a sound system together from start to finish How to connect a monitor and install a modem All about setting up and configuring the hard drive Secrets for securing your system, and more Included is a bonus DVD showing you how to install the motherboard, CPU, RAM, ports, hard drive, video and sound cards, a DVD drive, and more. With Build Your Own PC Do-It-Yourself For Dummies, you can have the computer you want plus the satisfaction of doing it yourself! Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.

Build-it-yourself guru Aubrey Pilgrim delivers a top-to-bottom update of his bestselling guide to building a complete, custom-made Pentium-chip system--including peripherals--at a fraction of dealer prices. Pilgrim provides new, updated or expanded coverage of all the latest Pentium chips, multispeed CD-ROMs and other new multimedia components, Windows 95 and OS/2 Warp, and hard-drive specs.

Research in the field of automatic speech and speaker recognition has made a number of significant advances in the last two decades, influenced by advances in signal processing, algorithms, architectures, and hardware. These advances include: the adoption of a statistical pattern recognition paradigm; the use of the hidden Markov modeling framework to characterize both the spectral and the temporal variations in the speech signal; the use of a large set of speech utterance examples from a large population of speakers to train the hidden Markov models of some fundamental speech units; the organization of speech and language knowledge sources into a structural finite state network; and the use of dynamic, programming based heuristic search methods to find the best word sequence in the lexical network corresponding to the spoken utterance. Automatic Speech and Speaker Recognition: Advanced Topics groups together in a single volume a number of important topics on speech and speaker recognition, topics which are of fundamental importance, but not yet covered in detail in existing textbooks. Although no explicit partition is given, the book is divided into five parts: Chapters 1-2 are devoted to technology overviews; Chapters 3-12 discuss acoustic modeling of fundamental speech units and lexical modeling of words and pronunciations; Chapters 13-15 address the issues related to flexibility and robustness; Chapter 16-18 concern the theoretical and practical issues of search; Chapters 19-20 give two examples of algorithm and implementational aspects for recognition system realization. Audience: A reference book for speech researchers and graduate students interested in pursuing potential research on the topic. May also be used as a text for advanced courses on the subject.

Do you want more computer than you can afford? A powerful machine that's bigger, better, faster? One with lots of bells and whistles? Here's a way to get it! With tools you already own (like a screwdriver) and no technical experience you can easily build a leading-edge, high-performance, super fast machine such as a Pentium II and get all the computer you dream of. Think of the bragging rights you'll earn. You'll be able to say, "I built it myself!"

Like travelers in a foreign land, Mac users working in Windows or Windows users working on a Mac often find themselves in unfamiliar territory with no guidebook. Crossing Platforms: A Macintosh/Windows Phrasebook, with information presented in a translation dictionary-like format, offers users a handy way of translating skills and knowledge from one platform to the other. Whether it's explaining the difference between Macintoshaliases and Windows shortcuts or explaining how a Windows user would go about setting up Internet access on a Mac, this book provides readers a simple means to look up familiar interface elements and system features and learn how that element or feature works on the other platform.Crossing Platforms: A Macintosh/Windows Phrasebook includes: A general introduction to the key differences between the Mac and Windows A to Z sections for each platform: one section where Mac users look up familiar Macintosh terms to find the equivalent function in Windows along with an explanation of the differences; and another section where Windows users find familiar Windows terms with pointers to the Macintosh equivalent along with full descriptions of how the function works on the Mac and important differences between the two platforms The complete translation dictionary-like reference book,Crossing Platforms: A Macintosh/Windows Phrasebook provides a simple solution for everyone who has been confused and frustrated by the arbitrary and sometimes capricious differences between the Macintosh and Windows operating systems. This book bridges the Mac-PC knowledge gap many users are faced with when work or preference demands the use of both a PC and Mac. Whether you already know the Macintosh or Windows, this book helps you navigate in the other operating system using your existing skills and knowledge.