AT&T Labs Research - August 2012

Building Speech Applications Just Got Easier: AT&T Releases Speech API

by: Staff, June 29, 2012

Speech interfaces are becoming de rigueur because users find them easy to use. But implementing these interfaces is not easy. Speech technologies are complex and require expert knowledge. AT&T should know. The AT&T WATSON^SM speech engine represents decades of speech research and over 20 years of continuous use in the company’s large-scale dialog systems.

For the first time, this advanced technology is being made available to outside developers as the Speech API. Now developers have an easy way to incorporate fast, accurate speech recognition to build voice-enabled applications. Read more

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AT&T Research at ACM SIGCOMM 2012

AT&T is a sponsor this year of the annual conference of the ACM Special Interest Group on Data Communication (SIGCOMM) on the applications, technologies, architectures, and protocols for computer communication. The conference takes place August 13-17 in Helsinki.

AT&T researchers along with colleagues are participating in five workshops and sessions. Go here for times and dates.

Paper on dense subgraphs voted best of VLDB 2012

A paper co-authored by Divesh Srivastava, Dense Subgraph Maintenance under Streaming Edge Weight Updates for Real-time Story Identification, has won the Best Paper Award for VLDB 2012.

The paper describes a real-time technique for identifying trending news stories within social media, an enormously rich information stream. The award cites the technique’s insightful algorithmic contributions and its potential for broader applicability.

Turn When the Steering Wheel Tells You

Digital services in the car have the potential to make driving easier and safer—if they don’t distract the driver. A haptic steering wheel, by using tactile-based signals, may more safely convey navigation information than audio or visual cues.

Other cloud-based services recently showcased by AT&T Research include a bio-acoustic door lock, a car system that alerts when you forget an item, and Air Graffiti for air-tagging locations. Read more.

Encouraging women to consider STEM majors

Women and minorities have traditionally avoided majoring in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). But as the need grows for more scientists and engineers, STEM fields must become more inclusive.

In this US News and Report interview, Alicia Abella, executive director of technical research at AT&T Labs, describes what colleges, professionals, and parents can do to encourage women to consider STEM majors.

Innovation: Changing the Face of Telecom

Innovation is usually associated with small startups quick to see the changes in the technology landscape and nimble enough to get out in front of those changes.

But large telecoms, including AT&T, are surprisingly innovative; they have to be or risk becoming irrelevant. A recent Pipeline article compares and contrasts the different approaches taken by large telecoms to advance and incorporate cutting-edge technology.

2002 Paper on tomography stands test of time

This year’s ACM SIGMETRICS conference conferred its Test of Time Award on Network Tomography on General Topologies, a paper co-authored by Nick Duffield. The award, given each year to a previous conference paper whose impact is still felt 10-12 years after publication, cited the paper’s pioneering work in network tomography, particularly its novel methods to estimate delay, packet loss, and other measures of performance.