Advances in Chinese speech-recognition technology would bring major changes to the global computer industry, an IBM official says.
'The major inhibitor is the keyboard,' George Wang, director of IBM's China research laboratory, said.
The solution lies in the creation of a 'keyboardless' computer, due to the Chinese language's 5,000 characters.
The technology could then be applied to develop a range of keyboardless computers that would be adopted and marketed around the world.
The solution, which would create an easier and more natural method of inputting data, was being pursued by the major computer companies, Mr Wang said.
'It's very competition intensive. Because of the advent of computer technology, it's only now that we can look at the commercial sector of speech-recognition technology.' IBM's latest Chinese speech dictation unit, which has been demonstrated in Hong Kong and Beijing, is an algorithm-based system with a 30,000-word vocabulary. It enables dictation in continuous speech and recognises Mandarin variations such as Shanghainese.
In addition to speech recognition, the IBM China lab is also developing Chinese-language Internet products.
