The main goal of the Applied Voice Input Output Society (AVIOS), a nonprofit organization founded in 1981 in United States, is to facilitate the effective interaction among telephones, computers, and other devices by voice, or speech recognition. With decades of steady progress, the speech technology has matured to provide the level of support to users that AVIOS has long envisioned.

Like other interface technologies that provide new levels of ease-of-use, it is affecting not only the way people use their technology, but the fortunes of companies that connect with those users in many ways.

AVIOS's first Mobile Voice Conference, held in 2010, recognized this trend, and it has certainly evolved as expected, with applications, such as voice search, moving toward the mobile phone and becoming a personal assistant, saying what we want to do or know. The conference examines practical applications of speech recognition, text-to-speech, audio search, speaker authentication, and other speech technologies, and how they interact with other technologies, such as touchscreens.

The second Mobile Voice Conference is being held in San Jose, on Jan. 24-26, focusing on this trend and how companies can take advantage of it.

AVIOS recognized that the impetus to the wide adoption of speech recognition and other voice technologies would be driven by mobile phone usage, particularly as those devices did more and more. The devices' other interface modalities are effective, but limited by the size of the device and the need to use it in situations where hands and eyes may be doing double duty.

AVIOS and Bill Meisel's TMA Associates are co-organizers of the Mobile Voice Conference. The primary sponsors of the conference are Microsoft and Openstream. Loquendo (News - Alert) and ATX Group are supporting sponsors.