IBM has decided to make some of its key speech technology open source. (That's an old Kurzweil AI poster found at Ethicon, a Johnson & Johnson company that could be important in what follows after the jump.)

This is great news, and they're doing it for all the right reasons. The following quote, from a New York Times story on the decision, could have been written by Linus Torvalds himself:

"We're trying to spur the industry around open standards to get more and more speech application development," said Steven A. Mills, the senior vice president in charge of I.B.M.'s software business. "Our code contribution is about getting that ecosystem going. If that happens, we think it will bring more business opportunities to I.B.M."

Exactly.

Voice interfaces are stalled right now, in niche markets such as serving the blind and helping people in their cars.

But voice can do so much more.

Voice is the perfect interface for your home Wi-Fi network, and its Always On applications. If you want to know something, if you want to do something, why should you have to go tap a screen or, worse, play with a mouse-and-keyboard?

Why not just say what you want and have the system do it for you? Are you lying in bed, cold, with the air conditioner blasting? Tell it to stop. Are you wondering whether there's a cold beer in your refrigerator? Ask the network. Has something made you nervous so you want to know what your blood pressure is right now? Ask. Have you fallen and you can't get up? Call out to be heard.

Microphones attached to your Wi-Fi network in every room should pick up your voice, donated software should interpret the commands, and if a verbal response is needed it should come through any available speaker. The response doesn't have to be words, it can be a tone. The response could be the sound of your phone dialing 911, it could be a simple yes or no to the beer question, or it could be a display on your Always On wristwatch.

What's needed for this to happen is for entrepreneurs to get basic speech technology and attach it to ideas. They won't be selling Wi-Fi, but help for grandma. And you'll buy it, because she can use it.

But it doesn't happen unless the tools are there as well as the market, and the failure of such companies as Lernout & Hauspie took the tools away.

Now IBM has brought them back.

God bless 'em.