The Hindu Business Line : Dr Raj Reddy makes PCs talk the masses language

DR Raj Reddy, Head of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Lab, Carnegie Mellon University, is on a mission to bridge the digital divide but with a difference — empowering illiterates to actually use computers!

Having started with the design of a low-cost innovative entertainment-cum-communication device referred to as PCTV, that builds on open source software, Dr Reddy is now engaged in building artificial intelligence into speech recognition software and language process synthesis. These would enable even a person with language barrier actually access the benefits of a computer, while reaping the advantages of entertainment.

So how has Dr Reddy gone about addressing this task? Dr Reddy and a team of researchers at the International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad, and the Indian Institute of Science, have jointly developed Indian language processing software that is available free with downloads.

"We decided to work on Indian language synthesis since this poses a great challenge to communicators and is a major hurdle in PC usage. Therefore, we have developed a software that enables people to use the English keyboard and yet harness the advantage of local language.

With the Andhra Pradesh Government embarking on a broadband project, we expect this software coupled with the low cost infotainment device will address the requirements of rural people. This device can be procured locally through vendors such as Videocon or from a Korean manufacturer Trigem. While this is priced at $500 now, in the next two years could possibly come down to as low as $250. Apart from serving as a TV, this will have a DVD player and have the capability to record video while serving as a phone-cum-video conferencing unit. "The speciality of this device is that, as opposed to asynchronous communication of mail, we can actually offer synchronous communication of voice mail and video conferencing," Dr Reddy said.

The effort is on to hold parleys with the likes of Intel and AMD aimed at driving down costs with low cost chips for hardware inputs and software major Microsoft for cheaper operating system. We could also possibly consider Linux to support this PCTV project, he said.

"The IIIT-H wanted to commence its pilot project with deployment of about 10 units in a village in Andhra Pradesh. Based on its success, we wanted to replicate in about 100 villages . We expect to commence work in January 2005," Dr Reddy explained.

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