Speech recognition API for windows 8.1

Question

I could have sworn I saw documentation for speech recognition for 8.1 a couple months ago. I can't find it now.

Does anyone know if there is one in 8.1 for us to work with? 

Answer 1

There is a speech synthesis API in Windows 8.1. See Speech synthesis .

There is no in-box speech recognition API. You will still need to call out to an external service.

--Rob

Answer 2

Thank you for your answer.

I'm a little annoyed by this.  Seems to me like MS is becoming more and more like Apple with the marginal improvements with each upgrade.  Put a different color on the exact same phone and call a revolutionary "new" innovation. 

I say this because speech recognition has been around since vista.  I simply don't understand why MS is holding these features back.  I've been designing my apps with speech recognition in mind for future updates.

Answer 3

Microsoft offers speech recognition for Windows. Just do a web search for "Bing Speech Recognition Control".

Answer 4

Thanks for pointing out that The Bing Speech Recognition Control is now available (it wasn't at the time of the thread, but you could connect to the Bing web services). For help with it please post in the Bing Developer General Forum.

--Rob

Answer 5

The Bing Speech Recognition Control requires a connection as the recognition is achieved server-side. Furthermore, it would be rather useless if the requirement—as is the case for me—is to create a hands-free UI for the app. The situation is particularly frustrating since Windows 8 has impressive speech recognition capabilities on the desktop side—something I think Microsoft should better advertise by the way.

That said, I was just playing with a Lenovo Yoga and saw that they developed an app called Yoga Chef. I was surprised that it actually had support for voice commands! It was more surprising that the app's permissions don't list the use of microphone as one of the capabilities. So the question is: do they have access to undocumented speech APIs to do this since they're, well, Lenovo and we're not?

Answer 6

Anybody can include their own speech recognition engine in with their app. There is no in-box speech recognition available to apps, undocumented or not.

--Rob

Answer 7

Thank you for clarifying this, Rob.