It’s an exciting time for web APIs, and one to watch out for is the Web Speech API. It enables websites and web apps not only to speak to you, but to listen, too. It’s still early days, but this functionality is set to open a whole array of use cases. I’d say that’s pretty awesome.
In this article, we’ll look at the technology and its proposed usage, as well as some great examples of how it can be used to enhance the user experience.
Disclaimer: This technology is pretty cutting-edge, and the specification is currently with the W3C as an “unofficial editor’s draft” (as of 6 June 2014). The likelihood that usage will differ slightly from the code snippets in this article is high. Checking the specification and testing thoroughly before releasing code are always wise.