Speech-enabled windows application using Microsoft SAPI

PCs are no longer a playground for a few computer freaks. They have changed from “big pocket calculators ” to be used as everyday tools with seemingly unlimited options. In modern countries using a computer has become a basic requirement like reading and writing. The importance of digital information has already reached such an enormous level that many start-up companies and even corporations provide information largely digital. Also politicians around the world try to find their ways to a paperless e-Government. Obviously this is a positive progress because it means up to date information at any time and for everybody. But is this really accessible to everybody? People with disability such as visual impaired are often forgotten though the number of the elderly for who it's very hard to identify the screen text is already high and increasing continuously during the next decades. So it would be a real relief to have the option to use ears to listen to the contents and use voices to navigate and control the computer systems. Even if sometime it is for normal people, it would be more comfortable to work with speech enabled applications. Microsoft has designed an interface called SAPI (Speech Application Programming Interface) which supports dynamic speech input and output, and integrated it in its current operating system. With the API it is possible to develop speech enabled applications without caring about the details of synthesis and recognition. In this paper, a windows application is presented to demonstrate the speech-enabled application usin