Applied Voice Input Output Society, a non-profit organization that organizes the Mobile Voice Conference in April among other activities, is sponsoring a webinar entitled Speech and Mobility: The "new touch"? that will take place Thursday December 17th, 1 PM EST. The event will assemble members of the society's board with the goal of providing insights into the shift from touch to text input and what companies could do to address it.

Here's the event's abstract:

Mobile phones and automobiles are accelerating the acceptance of speech recognition and text-to-speech synthesis as part of the user interface. The performance of these technologies demonstrably has reached levels of utility that satisfies consumers. The technology has been included in national ads by large, influential companies, and one large, influential company that was built in part on the success of the Graphical User Interface called speech the "new touch" on their Web site.

But the impact of speech in the user interface impacts more than the growth of applications and services on mobile devices. As users see the utility of adding speech to the mix and view it as a friendly option, organizations such as contact centers must adapt to new expectations.

Panelists (all are members of the AVIOS board) include Rob Chambers, Principal Group Program Manager Speech Components Group, Microsoft; Mike Cohen, Manager, Speech Technology, Google; Bruce Pollock, Vice President, Strategic Growth and Planning, West Interactive; and Tom Schalk, Vice President, Voice Technology, ATX Group, Inc.

See here for more on the webinar and information on how to attend the event.