The system uses speech technology to announce exit numbers and turns.
Research in speech technology predated the advent of digital computers.
But there's one aspect of speech technology that has proven the most difficult to advance - multiple voices.
If a number of people meet in the same room, speech technology is useless.
It also plays an important role for several subfields of speech technology.
It could be said that the drive for human-sounding speech technology started far earlier than decades ago.
The acquisition would combine some of the world's most advanced speech technologies under one company.
Microsoft alone could change the rules by simply knitting speech technology into future versions of its ubiquitous Windows operating system.
And if the speech technology is good enough, it doesn't need a keyboard at all.
Microsoft Research now has a dozen research groups focusing on areas ranging from speech technology to computer vision and decision theory.