Voice technology is like networks and UNIX; it has been an emerging technology fort least a decade now.

A lot depends, though, on what people mean when they talk about computers and voice. Many think of the computer in "Star Trek", which carried on a conversation with anyone who walked up to it. Others think of an executive sitting at her desk, dictating a letter to a computer-secretary.

Since neither the technology nor the computing power is here yet to make these visions reality, voice technology developers have concentrated on systems that learn a very limited list of words spoken by a specific person. In the past, these systems have been of arguable benefit, since typing the command was usually quicker and more accurate.

A new category of voice products is emerging, though, which promises to make voice usable today and a major force in the future. These new products are based on graphical user interfaces, and integrate voice as one more object or means of control into an environment that is much more flexible than earlier systems.

Voice annotation of electronic mail is a standard feature on the Next, which has a sound input and digital signal processor. Farallon Computing Inc. has offered a simple sound input device for the Macintosh for several years.

The future direction of voice products is best exemplified …

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