Natural Language

Forget Windows XP. Natural-language processing (NLP), along with accurate speech and gesture recognition, will be central to all operating systems by 2015. The goal is for computers to interact with people using natural human interface modalities. Body movement and voice commands will replace database queries.

NLP will link disparate groups on the Web. Imagine a worldwide chat, translated into your native tongue in real time. MIT and Microsoft already have software applications that control the cursor with a user's head movement, motion-controlled videoconferencing, and NLP applications that allow verbal dialog with machines.

"There are infinite ways to express thoughts," says Bill Dolan, manager of Microsoft Research's Natural Language Processing Group. "We want to map that to a finite range of actions a machine might take." - Mary E. Behr