Speech recognition anyone? AT&T opens up Watson API

Look out Nuance Communications(s nuan), there's a new speech recognition player in town. Nuance can't simply buy up this potential competitor as it has in the past since this company happens to be AT&T(s t). Ma Bell has taken the locks off of its Watson speech application programming interfaces (APIs), allowing any developer to access them. AT&T promised in April to open Watson up to general development, but on Monday AT&T SVP for technology and network operations John Donovan made the launch official in a blog post, revealing seven different "contexts," or language libraries, that app builders can access to speechify their products. Like Nuance, AT&T has developed specific taxonomies for specific use cases, allowing its servers to anticipate the words and phrasing consumers are likely to speak in a particular context.