Language technology allows human-computer interaction using the spoken word.

Over the next few years the recent advances in speech recognition, the adoption of VoiceXML, the establishment of Voice Portals and the growth of public frustration with current touch-tone systems will ensure that a new bread of speech applications will be implemented. Expect all of the following (and much more) to be available over the phone by talking to a computer:

email reading and sending
train, plane, ferry and bus timetables
ticket booking and sales completions
banking, insurance, betting
encyclopedic information

There are 250 million computers connected to the Internet but there are some 1.3 billion phones in the world. Voice Portals enable the users of these phones to access information from the Internet without any requirement for computer skills or, indeed, even the ownership of advanced technology. This unique characteristic can make Voice Portals a key player in the field of better service delivery. This is an area of growing concern to governments which owe duties to those who are dis-enfranchised from the Internet for lack of resources or because of physical disadvantage such as impaired sight (and there are some 300,000 such persons in this group in Australia alone).