• ANI: Automatic Number Identification, the process of automatically identifying a caller's billing number and transmitting that number from the caller's local central office to another point on or off the public network.
  
  
• ASR: Automated Speech Recognition. The process of converting spoken words to instructions for computers.
  
  
• CTI: Computer-telephony integration, or sometimes simply "computer telephony," is the use of computers to manage telephone calls. The term is used in describing the computerized services of call center
  
  
• Dialog: A dialog refers to the naturally spoken words, phrases and sentences that make up the conversational "roadmap" of the voice application. A dialog defines what callers can say and what they will hear at any given stage of the interface.
  
  
• DTMF: Dual-tone Multi Frequency is the signal to the phone company that you generate when you press an ordinary telephone's touch keys.
  
  
• Grammar: The set of words accepted by the speech recognition engine, for example, "yes", "okay" and "yeah" are all accepted forms of reply. VoiceXML applications use grammars to specify sets of valid user utterances at particular points in an interaction with an application. Grammars identify sets of possible things a user can say as responses to a given option.
  
  
• Telephony: Science of converting sound to electrical signals and transmitting it between widely removed points.
  
  
• TTS: Text to Speech. The process of converting electronic text to spoken words. TTS software converts text into audio output, enabling large quantities of text-based information to be heard over the telephone. TTS technology can be useful whenever a computerized application needs to communicate with a customer or user, and so is especially useful in telephone services.
  
  
• GSL: Nuance Grammar Specification Language
  
  
• IVR: Interactive Voice Response is a software application that accepts a combination of voice telephone input and touch-tone keypad selection and provides appropriate responses in the form of voice, fax, callback, e-mail, etc.
  
  
• Outbound notification: A telephone call, wireless message, e-mail message, or fax message that announces an important piece of information (such as the release of an offender or the availability of a flight upgrade).
  
  
• PSTN: Public Switched Telephone Network refers to the world's collection of interconnected voice-oriented public telephone networks, both commercial and government-owned. It's also referred to as the Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS).
  
  
• VoiceXML: VoiceXML is an application of the Extensible Markup Language (XML) which, when combined with voice recognition technology, enables interactive access to the Web through the telephone or a voice-driven browser. Voice XML is emerging as the standard for speech recognition services and utilizes tags to describe dialogs and call flow.
  
  
• Speech Recognition: the process by which a computer maps an acoustic speech signal to text.
  
  
• Voice Portal: Telephone service where callers dial a phone number to retrieve information such as stock quotes, sports scores, and weather reports
  
  
• VO: Voice Over. Profession where an individual (“talent”) reads text in a natural, often conversational style-without sounding like they have the words written on a piece of paper in front of them. VO is recorded (wav file) and integrated in voice applications, replacing the TTS engine for handling either some or all prompts.
  
  
• VUI: Voice User Interface. Analogous to a Graphical User Interface (GUI), a VUI provides an interface for a user to access information and request services. A VUI utilizes speech recognition to interpret what the caller is requesting and respond accordingly. A customized voice user interface enhances a company's brand and provides a competitive advantage and greater ease of use, as customers are able to interact with the information they need simply by speaking naturally.

Copyright Alpen Software, Inc.