Friday, August 31, 2012

Removing Authentication Hurdles with Voice Biometrics

When it comes to customer service, consumers are taking charge. When they pickup the phone they want to get answers - fast. But are consumers really getting the results they want the way they want them? A recent consumer survey of attitudes around present-day caller authentication systems shows this stage of the customer journey is neither quick nor convenient. To the contrary, the majority of respondents are frustrated with today’s automated authentication approaches.  But it’s not all a bad news story. The same survey highlights where companies can - and must - make improvements.

Give your customers what they want? It’s the number one thing businesses have to do to drive positive results and create lasting loyalty. But companies don’t have to jump through hoops to delight their customers. A good customer experience is one that keeps it simple, removing all the obstacles that waste people’s time or tax their patience. Success is all about delivering convenience every step of the customer journey.

Customer service is a critical stage in this journey, and one where companies can do a lot to remove the roadblocks that prevent customers from achieving what they set out to do in the first place. Whether the customer picks up the phone to ask some basic information, or just wants to connect with a ‘human’ to resolve a customer care issue, it’s the company that can remove the friction that is best positioned to delight - and keep - the customer.

Providing good customer service is key, but there are many ways to achieve this goal.

In an effort to streamline the process after a caller contacts the business many companies have implemented automated systems. The purpose of these speech-enabled IVRs is to identify and authenticate the caller quickly and effectively before routing the call to the right resource.

While these caller authentication solutions may tick all the boxes, the bigger question remains: Do they truly satisfy the customer? 

Speech Technology Group out of San Diego, California thinks so. They provide premise-based and hosted voice biometrics and voice signature solutions, that prevent fraudulent transactions in hundreds of companies across the nation. 

In May Opus Research, in conjunction with Nuance Communications, commissioned Coleman-Parkes Associates to find out.

Easy does it

The research firm surveyed 1,000 individuals who had recently used their telephone for customer care to assess their attitudes toward speech enabled systems for authentication and gain insights into the features and functionality  customers would consider ideal.

Among the findings, a whopping 85 percent of respondents said they were dissatisfied with today’s automated authentication systems and approaches. “It’s not that customers don’t understand or appreciate the requirement for a system that verifies who they really are,” explains Dan Miller, Opus Research Senior Analyst, Conversational Commerce. “They do indeed want a high level of security, but they also want an authentication process that is effortless.”

By way of background, most authentication systems require the caller to provide some sort of identifying information, such as a PIN, password or other personal information such as birth date or hometown.

Miller argues that this approach is flawed on two counts. One, the information the caller customarily offers is has “little real security value” - and consumers know that. “Identity theft makes people feel vulnerable.” On top of this feeling is the realization that personal information is easy to take from computer records or just by connecting the dots in what people say in their social networks. “This creates a real requirement for a more secure authentication systems.”

Two, these systems put the pressure on the caller to remember his or her password, pin or personal information. “The problem with this approach is the burden it puts on the caller to remember and recite this key information,” Miller says. “It’s human to forget and, in the case of passwords, people prove all to human.”

And that leads to another almost emotional issue respondents have with current authentication systems.

Forgetting the information, which respondents said often happens, sends them on a trip around the system that costs them even more time and patience. “People are most peeved at this point because they have failed to authenticate on the first attempt - and people generally don’t like to fail, ” Miller observes. Adding insult to injury, the caller is now moved on to an alternative authentication method that often requires the caller to provide a live agent with additional information or answers to security questions. “And this is largely regarded as a waste of time.”

Get to the goal

Each shopping journey may start on a mobile app or Internet website, but when customers get to the point that they want to pick up the phone and talk to somebody, they mean business. As Miller puts it: Callers understandably have little patience with “obstacles on the road to successful task completion.”

Interestingly, it’s the youth that have the most issues with current authentication methods. Specifically, callers across the 18-24 age group “show the least patience and the strongest desire to get to an agent - and get things done,” Miller says. Older respondents also have problems with authentication schemes that put the burden on them to provide PINs or other forms of personal information. “As people get older, they are more prone to forget important information. So, they, too, want a process that is easy and effortless.”

Ideal scenarios

So, what do customers really want out of their customer care experience? The survey results provide some important clues that Miller says should be used in designing secure and convenient authentication systems in the future.

“Respondents told us they want frictionless, speedy service,” Miller explained. This is where voice biometrics can come in to deliver simple and secure authentication, saving customer the hassle of having to provide personal information because their individual voice - not what they know - verifies who they are.

In Miller’s view, the advantage of voice-based authentication is that it can help people accomplish their goals in “a way where their security is assured and they can also be sure they aren’t wasting their time in the process.”

And companies shouldn’t take the customer requirement for a simple yet secure method of caller authentication too lightly. According to the survey, respondents already indicated that they were prompted to provide a PIN or some other form of information for 83 percent of the calls they made.

That number is sure to “skyrocket,” a development that should force companies to rethink their approach to authentication now, rather than later. The advance of mobile and services such as mobile commerce, mobile banking and healthcare will further increase the demand for simple and secure authentication. In fact, it is  recognition of this mobile-megatrend that Opus Research has renamed Miller’s area of subject expertise “Conversational Commerce.”

Moving ahead, Miller is convinced that strong identification is key to trusted communications. And, since services such as commerce will take place on mobile devices, it follows that there will be a significant increase the conversations that take place between people and companies. “Customers want - and will demand - simple and secure services that accommodate their needs and schedules, not just those of the vendors.”

via http://www.speechtechnologygroup.com/speech-blog - When it comes to customer service, consumers are taking charge. When they pickup the phone they want to get answers - fast. But are consumers really getting the results they want the way they want them? A recent consumer survey of attitudes around present-day caller authentication systems shows this ...

Ford will bring Microsoft powered Sync in-car voice recognition to the UK next year

Microsoft's powerful speech recognition and text-to-speech technology will assist Ford drivers in the UK…

Source: google.com
            
An enhanced version will debut in the Ford Focus electric car
Thu Aug 30 2012, 19:15

BERLIN: AUTOMAKER Ford has announced that it will bring its in-car voice recognition technology called Sync to the UK next year in its Ford Focus electric car.

Announcing the news at the IFA electronics expo in Berlin today, MD of Ford Research Pim Van Der Jagt said an enhanced version of the software, which so far is employed only in cars in the US, will feature in the car when it debuts in Europe.

ifa ford sync focus electric car

Ford Worked in partnership with Microsoft, which helped develop the software. Van Der Jagt said the next generation Sync software, dubbed My Ford Touch will “turn cars into mobile WiFi hotspots”.

My Ford Touch will use Bluetooth connectivity with a driver’s smartphone so that they can make hands free calls, but what Van Der Jagt described as unique was that drivers will be able to open text messages and warnings and read them via text-to-speech. “You can also automatically reply to it with voice control,” Van Der Jagt added.

Sync with My Ford Touch also introduces more voice commands on a large 9in interactive display, allowing the driver to download pictures, play videos (but only allowed while stationary), and add pictures to phone contacts as well as music album art so it is displayed while being played.

“The Sync voice control is best system around and will now come to the EU in nine major European languages,” Van Der Jagt said. “Whats different from previous generations is that it also understands natural voice speeds - say ‘play Bruce Springsteen’ and it will look into [its] library and play it.”

Along with the Sync and My Ford Touch software, there’s also an “Emergency Assistance” feaure bundled free of charge. If you get into an accident, it will automatically make an emergency call for you and tell the operator your location, asking for support to come.

Though Sync will be rolled out in Europe in the Ford Focus electric car to begin with, Ford insists this is just a starting point, and said it is preparing to launch Sync technology throughout its entire global portfolio.

“We hope to have nine million systems driving around globally by 2015,” Van Der Jagt added.

via http://www.speechtechnologygroup.com/speech-blog - Microsoft's powerful speech recognition and text-to-speech technology will assist Ford drivers in the UK… Source:  google.com              An enhanced version will debut in the Ford Focus electric car By Lee Bell Thu Aug 30 2012, 19:15 BERLIN: AUTOMAKER Ford has announced that it will bring its in-c ...

Samsung introduces Drive Link - Articles

No you can keep your eyes on the road with the Text to Speech system by Samsung that reads your email and text messages out loud…


Source: google.com
Are you one of the millions of people who can’t keep their hands off of their smartphone while driving? If you answered yes, then Samsung has an app designed specifically with you in mind – Drive Link. Drive Link’s user interface is specifically designed with distracted drivers in mind.

Attached Image: Samsung-Electronics-introduces-Drive-Link_2.jpg I’ll admit it, in this technology connected world, I can’t keep my hands off of my smartphone, especially when I am driving. I try to limit myself to just reading emails and texts at stop lights, but many times I feel the need to respond to a text or an email. I can usually get away with “safely” responding using the voice-to-text feature on SwiftKey 3. So now Samsung has me intrigued with the Drive Link app they are going to be releasing soon. Samsung has designed Drive Link to conform to the strict standards developed by the Japanese Automotive Manufacturers Association. According to Samsung, the Japanese Automotive Manufacturers Association has created some of the strongest driving standards worldwide.

Attached Image: Samsung-Electronics-introduces-Drive-Link_1.jpg Drive Link employs a simple design which was created to be quick and intuitive for people who are always on the move. The app features large buttons and a straightforward menu structure. Once the app is loaded, the user receives weather and calendar data on the home screen. By using a supported Samsung smartphone, and if the car is equipped, the app syncs with the vehicle’s head unit using MirrorLink. Developed by the Car Connectivity Consortium, MirrorLink is the new standard for connectivity between mobile devices and vehicle head units. According to Samsung, the Car Connectivity Consortium is an industry body comprising most major smartphone and vehicle car manufacturers including GM, Toyota, Honda, Volkswagen, Daimler, and Hyundai. The following head units will work with Direct Link: JVC’s KW-NSX1, Alpine’s ICS-X8, and Sony’s XAV-701BT, XAV-741 and XAV-601BT. The main functions and usability of Direct Link focus on navigation, music playback and Text-To-Speech. Text-To-Speech is the most interesting as a user can opt to have their text and emails read aloud while driving, thus eliminating the need to take one’s eyes off the road. The feature will be available in the following languages: English (both U.S. and U.K) French, Italian, German, and Spanish. There is even a feature to have social media updates read aloud while driving.

The app will be launching on the Galaxy S III, with other Samsung models running Android 4.0 or above to follow. The app will available for download via Samsung Apps.

via http://www.speechtechnologygroup.com/speech-blog - No you can keep your eyes on the road with the Text to Speech system by Samsung that reads your email and text messages out loud… Source:  google.com Are you one of the millions of people who can’t keep their hands off of their smartphone while driving? If you answered yes, then Samsung has an app d ...

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Apple Battles With Android-Centric MirrorLink For Control Of Connected Car

A behind the scenes look at some of the in-car speech recognition initiatives. …

Source: ZDNet

Android often gets criticized for fragmentation. But the connected car market has it beat by a mile, with literally dozens of competing telematics platforms, each with its own code and quirks for developers to wrestle with.

At the Charged: Electric Vehicle Symposium Silicon Valley held last week on SAP’s Palo Alto campus, I learned a few things which left me unoptimistic that things are changing anytime soon.

The good news: carmakers are eager to garner more apps. You have Nissan, which is introducing the 8th generation of its NissanConnect system that includes integration with Google local search and Pandora music. Or BMW, which is working with developers on 100 apps today for its car computing platform, according to Andreas Winckler, a senior advanced technology engineer in the BMW Group’s Silicon Valley office. And there’s even this juicy rumor about Tesla Motors and the telematics system in its Model S Sedan that I heard from a source at a rival electric car maker.

 

shutterstock_94203646

Credit: Shutterstock.com

Usually, as a particular market matures, platforms tend to consolidate around a few winners. That creates scale and helps enable the hockey-stick-like growth of ecosystems that we’re witnessing today around iOS, Android and, potentially, Windows 8.

That sort of consolidation isn’t happening with cars. If anything, the number of platforms is continuing to expand, as automakers continue to create different platforms for different models.

“We’re really at the ground floor,” said Kal Mos, senior engineering director at Mercedes-Benz Research & Development North America. “I’d compare it to the early years of the PC and the Internet.”

 For would-be developers, that means extra work and less potential revenue. Would you rather invest your time building an app with, at best, several hundred thousand potential customers, or several hundred million?

Conflicting Efforts To Unify Market

As I’ve noted, the way to create scale and attract developers would be for carmakers to de-emphasize their own platforms in favor of established mobile ones. 

Indeed, there are two main new efforts to do just that.

(Some commentators below brought up QNX Car, which is used as an underlying platform by a number of carmakers. QNX is for in-car head units, not for mobile-car integration, though the latest version does allow mirroring of mobile devices. Also, QNX, as BlackBerry PlayBook owners know, doesn’t have a deep base of apps today like iOS or Android.) 

The first is led by Apple, which wants to integrate its iOS devices more deeply into the existing computers of each automaker. The ‘Eyes Free’ technology would allow drivers to control apps via Apple’s Siri voice-recognition feature, or via steering wheel dashboards.

Apple usually keeps all news close to the vest, including partnerships. Here is a rare example of it appearing to do the opposite. According to Fast Company:

At WWDC, Forstall promised that “a number of auto manufacturers have already committed to delivering eyes-free Siri integration in the next 12 months.” Yet of all of the automakers that Apple featured (Mercedes, BMW, GM, Land Rover, Jaguar, Audi, Toyota, Chrysler, Honda), just a few could confirm they were indeed working on delivering the technology within that timeframe. One automaker even seemed unaware that Apple had held an announcement.

“We haven’t seen the statements attributed to Apple and we have nothing to announce at this time,” a Chrysler spokesperson said by email. When pressed, the spokesperson would only add that “Chrysler does not comment on future product plans.” 

The second effort is a technical framework called MirrorLink that would define how smartphone and tablet apps are displayed and controlled via an in-car touchscreen. Created by the Car Connectivity Consortium, MirrorLink is backed by 75 companies that represent 70% of the car market and 60% of the smartphone market (including major Android makers Samsung, HTC and LG).

MirrorLink’s interoperable standard would make it easier and faster for mobile developers to write car-friendly apps. The Samsung Galaxy S III isNokia had the first mobile device to support MirrorLink (followed by Samsung with its Galaxy S III), while Sony has released five MirrorLink-compatible car audio head units.

The problem is that there are key holdouts, including major carmakers like Nissan (“we’re not on the Consortium at this point, though we’re keeping an eye on it,” said Koji Doda, research and partner manager for Nissan North America), mobile platform vendors like Google and Microsoft and the biggest holdout of all, Apple.

Too Much Empowerment?

On a technical level, one source claimed there are two potential negatives with MirrorLink: its Android-centricity (despite Google’s lack of official involvement with MirrorLink), and the narrow bandwidth channel defined by MirrorLink between device and car screen, which could hurt multimedia apps.  

Even carmakers that are officially supporting MirrorLink express ambivalence over ceding control to mobile devices and potentially degrading its brand.

Car makers “have to take responsibility for everything that appears on the car,” explained Alex Keros, manager for advanced vehicle and infrastructure policy at General Motors Corp. 

Agreed BMW’s Winckler: “We want to control the user experience. It’s still a BMW.”

Others cite the potential for mobile ads to distract drivers and cause accidents.

“You can’t clutter the screen with mobile ads,” Mos said. “So if car apps are not ad supported, you need to find a way to pay for it.”

Meanwhile, leaders like BMW are ambivalent about MirrorLink because it hampers their ability to innovate.

“Often times it’s the slowest party that gets to define the spec,” Winckler said. He also decried the resulting reliance on fragile mobile devices.

“If you’re in Los Angeles and leave your smartphone in your car on a sunny day and come back, see what works: [the BMW car computer] or the smartphone,” he said.

As a result, BMW will offer nominal support for mobile-centric efforts like MirrorLink, while continuing to build its own car computers that only offer “controlled openness” to developers. That means handpicking mobile developers and parceling out access privately.

“We will never have an open API,” Winckler said.

Even Mercedes-Benz, which is a leading backer of MirrorLink, will continue to hedge its bets and invest heavily in its own platform, said Mos.

No wonder that even developers like Barney Pell, CEO of parking payment app QuickPay, thinks it will take 5 to 7 years before these apps are truly integrated into cars in meaningful way. For mainstream mobile developers, that means one less market to write for in the near-term.

via http://www.speechtechnologygroup.com/speech-blog - A behind the scenes look at some of the in-car speech recognition initiatives. … Source:  ZDNet Android often gets criticized  for fragmentation. But the connected car market has it beat by a mile, with literally dozens of competing telematics  platforms, each with its own code and quirks for develo ...

Speech Recognition Now in the Major Leagues with Mobile Tech

An interesting look at speech recognition technology…

source: google.com

Recently, at a forum hosted by the Churchill Club of Silicon Valley in Palo Alto, C.A., reps of a speech-recognition software company, an automaker and Apple (News - Alert) co-founder Steve Wozniak sat down to discuss the important issue of where speech recognition has been, and more importantly, where’s it’s headed.


 “If speech-recognition technology were a human, it would be like a five- or six-old child. At the age of one, you can speak to a child, but you have to speak slowly and simply using small words. By five or six, it starts to better understand your words and, more importantly, your meaning,” says this eWEEK article.

Speech recognition technology can get a pretty bad reputation when it comes to the comparison of computer speech development to human speech development. Nevertheless, speech is becoming the new computer user interface, or at least according to renowned Deputy Technology editor of The New York Times Quentin Hardy, it is. Quentin also served as a moderator of the panel.

The future of voice technology can be summed up in three words; machine to human. Speech-recognition technology has found its way to evolve from a machine understanding voice commands to actually understanding the meaning and context of those commands, elaborates Ron Kaplan, senior director and esteemed scientist at well-known voice technology company, Nuance (News - Alert). Nuance’s voice-recognition technology has contributed to some of the world’s most infamous creations, such as the Siri personal assistant feature on the iPhone 4S and the MyFordTouch for the Ford Motor Co., as based on Microsoft (News - Alert) Sync.

“One of the enabling technological advances that makes more accurate speech recognition possible and makes more accurate understanding of intent possible, is the ability to accumulate large amounts of data from lots of user experiences and to sift and organize and build models from it,” Kaplan explains.

Just as a child matures and develops, so has speech-recognition technology. As eWEEK perfectly puts it, “In other words, like a child, its vocabulary and understanding grows the more it hears what people say to it.”

Siri has transformed the history of voice recognition technology, where we have seen commercials featuring celebrities ranging from Zooey Deschanel to Samuel Jackson to Martin Scorsese speaking to Siri in “natural language,” making commands ranging from traffic predictions to getting tomato soup delivered – with Siri actually understanding what they say without having to speak slow and cautiously or ask for repeats.

Siri has sparked the rise of a few related apps as well, including Nina and U.K.-based Evi. Needless to say, mobile technology is – and has been – changing the face of speech recognition technology as we know it, bringing it from the minor leagues to the sold-out stadiums.

“We’ve moved along a maturity path where … people’s expectations about what they can do with today’s technologies … [to] create its own demand,” said Dan Miller (News - Alert), senior analyst and founder of Opus Research. “And then these energetic and imaginative people can come and try to fulfill that.”

via http://www.speechtechnologygroup.com/speech-blog - An interesting look at speech recognition technology… source:  google.com Recently, at a forum hosted by the Churchill Club of Silicon Valley in Palo Alto, C.A., reps of a speech-recognition software company, an automaker and Apple ( News - Alert ) co-founder Steve Wozniak sat down to discuss the im ...

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Breakfast with Google’s Search Team

If you want to learn more about the future of Google search read on…

Google’s search engineers and product managers present on how we’re moving toward building the Star Trek computer of the future. Learn about advances in the Knowledge Graph technology, the Gmail in personal results field trial, and improved speech recognition in our iOS app.To join the Gmail field trial, visit g.co/searchtrial.

To learn about the latest from the search team, visit http://www.google.com/insidesearch/.

via http://www.speechtechnologygroup.com/speech-blog - If you want to learn more about the future of Google search read on… Google’s search engineers and product managers present on how we’re moving toward building the Star Trek computer of the future. Learn about advances in the Knowledge Graph technology, the Gmail in personal results field trial, and ...

IBM making smartphone version of Watson

Here's what IBM has in stock for the mobile assistant Watson…

Source:

International Business Machines researchers spent four years developing Watson, the computer smart enough to beat the champions of the quiz show “Jeopardy!” Now they’re trying to figure out how to get those capabilities into the phone in your pocket.

Bernie Meyerson, IBM vice president of innovation, envisions a voice-activated Watson that answers questions, like a supercharged version of Apple’s Siri personal assistant. A farmer could stand in a field and ask his phone, “When should I plant my corn?” He would get a reply in seconds, based on location data, historical trends and scientific studies.

Finding additional uses for Watson is part of IBM’s plan to tap new markets and boost revenue from business analytics to $16 billion by 2015. After mastering history and pop culture for its “Jeopardy!” appearance, the system is crunching financial information for Citigroup Inc. and cancer data for WellPoint Inc. The next version, dubbed Watson 2.0, would be energy-efficient enough to work on smartphones and tablets.

“The power it takes to make Watson work is dropping down like a stone,” Meyerson said. “One day, you will have ready access to an incredible engine with a world knowledge base.”

Technical challenges

IBM expects to generate billions in sales by putting Watson to work in finance, health care, telecommunications and other areas. The computer, which 15 million people saw beat former “Jeopardy!” champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, is the company’s most high-profile product since it sold its personal-computer unit to Lenovo Group Ltd. seven years ago.

The challenge for IBM is overcoming the technical obstacles to making Watson a handheld product, and figuring out how to price and deliver it. Watson’s nerve center is 10 racks of IBM Power750 servers running in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., that have the same processing power as 6,000 desktop computers. Even though most of the computations occur at the data center, a Watson smartphone application would still consume too much power for it to be practical today.

Another hurdle: It takes a while for Watson to do the “machine learning” necessary to become a reliable assistant in an area. Watson’s deal with WellPoint was announced in September, and the system won’t master the field of oncology until at least late 2013.

Adding ‘senses’

Researchers also need to add voice and image recognition to the service so that it can respond to real-world input, said Katharine Frase, vice president of industry research at IBM.

“In 2.0, we hope to give him more senses,” Frase said. “A guy could say into his phone, ‘Here’s where I am and here’s what I see,’ lifting it up to take in images of the environment.”

IBM’s path to the mobile-assistant market contrasts with Apple’s. For one, IBM is focused on corporate customers, while Apple is targeting anyone who buys its phones.

Apple made Siri the focus of its marketing of the iPhone 4S, which debuted last year. The software is touted as a personal assistant that can answer a wide range of spoken questions - “Do I need an umbrella tomorrow?” - and put appointments in a calendar.

Siri has become a defining characteristic of the iPhone, though it’s also drawn complaints. In a June survey by Piper Jaffray & Co., Siri was found to resolve requests correctly less than 70 percent of the time.

Trudy Muller, a spokeswoman for the Cupertino company, said customers are happy with Siri and that Apple will further improve the software in the next version of the iOS operating system.

Complex questions

With Watson, IBM aims to tackle more complex questions. The program will be able to understand oncology well enough to advise doctors on diagnosis and prescriptions, said Martin Kohn, IBM’s chief medical scientist. One iPad application for Watson - a health care program developed with a Columbia University professor - is being used to demonstrate its medical capabilities for prospective IBM customers.

Adding voice recognition and other senses to Watson might be easier than adding knowledge because IBM already makes tools that understand images and natural language, Kohn said. An IBM project for the U.S. military, for example, translated English into local dialects of Arabic.

“Watson itself will not interpret images, but IBM has technology that does interpret images and numerical information,” Kohn said. “Watson 2.0 is all of these different tools, working together.”

via http://www.speechtechnologygroup.com/speech-blog - Here's what IBM has in stock for the mobile assistant Watson… Source: google.com International Business Machines researchers spent four years developing Watson, the computer smart enough to beat the champions of the quiz show “Jeopardy!” Now they’re trying to figure out how to get those capabilities ...

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Can Speech Recognition Software Improve Your Productivity as a Writer?

It takes a little time to become comfortable with dictating text versus writing on the keyboard, but once you have made the change the time savings are substantial…

Source:

Writers and bloggers face many challenges on a day-to-day basis: finding time to write without distractions, dealing with writer’s block, earning a living as a writer. Anything that can make the process easier can be a blessing.  A great tool to make a writer’s life easier is speech recognition software.  For those who have considered speech recognition software but never tried it – today’s programs are faster and more accurate than ever before.

The average person can type 40 words a minute and in many cases writers can type up to 60-70 wpm. But with the help of voice recognition software, it is possible to produce up to 150 wpm – a significant improvement, which can save a lot of time.  And for writers that don’t touch-type, trying to remember where that next key is can interrupt the flow of ideas – speech recognition software can keep that creativity going and allow you to quickly capture those thoughts and ideas and focus on the content of your writing. Dictating aloud will also help you see if your writing makes sense.

Writers that spend several hours a day in front of their computer run the risk of developing repetitive strain injury, which can threaten their ability to earn a living.  Back, neck and wrist pain can be avoided with voice recognition software, allowing you to work more comfortably.  Those with serious conditions such as carpal tunnel syndrome or arthritis can be as productive as ever, without aggravating their injuries.

The most well-known voice recognition and dictation software is Nuance Dragon NaturallySpeaking. The latest release offers an impressive 99% recognition accuracy. And the more you use it, the more the program learns to understand your voice and vocabulary, as well as your formatting preferences, and becomes ever better at transcribing. When the program does make a transcription error, the corrections list in the latest version contains even more alternate word choices for easy editing.

Dragon scans for context – understanding the probability of certain words appearing near other words, and choosing the correct homonym. Dragon also adapts to your writing style. You can speed up this process by allowing it to scan documents you’ve written and analyze them. This further improves accuracy.

You can also use thousands of voice commands to carry out text formatting and editing in Dragon, to navigate the Windows desktop and different applications, and to search the internet.

There’s also a great free Dragon iPad app. The app allows you to use your iPad to transcribe dictation – just  speak directly into your iPad and the app sends the recording of your voice over the internet to Nuance’s servers to be transcribed before returning the text back onto your screen a few seconds later. You can then edit your text with the iPad keyboard. When you’re done, send your text to email with a few quick taps of the screen. So you no longer have to be tied to your computer or laptop – now you can be even more mobile with the lighter, smaller iPad. You can work curled up on your sofa, in bed, in your garden ….. make yourself comfortable and let the inspiration flow.

via http://www.speechtechnologygroup.com/speech-blog - It takes a little time to become comfortable with dictating text versus writing on the keyboard, but once you have made the change the time savings are substantial… Source: google.com W riters and bloggers face many challenges on a day-to-day basis: finding time to write without distractions, dealin ...

Monday, August 27, 2012

Text to Speech Option Now Available for Water Ionizers Made Easy - Aug 27, 2012

Is the the future of reading - listening?

Through text to speech technology this is now becoming reality……


source: google.com

Los Angeles, CA — (SBWIRE) — 08/27/2012 —

The writers of Water Ionizers Made Easy! recently announced that the ebook, which is available on Amazon.com, will feature text to speech for those who wish to listen to the book instead of read it. This feature is currently included for free and is compatible with a variety of Kindles. This unique way of consuming the information in the water ionizer ebook can be beneficial for those people who constantly find themselves on the go, or those who have trouble reading for long periods of time.

In the ebook, the importance of a quality water ionizer for the home and/or office is stressed. The company provides detailed information on a variety of methods to create cleaner water, and it even includes coupons to IonizerOasis.com to save on some of their best-selling products. The 92-page ebook is easy to read or listen to with the text to speech feature. It is currently available for both purchase and rent through the Amazon ebook download program. Currently, the ebook is priced at $2.99.

To learn more about the text to speech program, or to see a preview of the ebook, visit http://www.amazon.com/Water-Ionizers-Made-Easy-ebook/dp/B008MPHQOS/.
About IonizerOasis.com
IonizerOasis.com is a website that focuses on providing people around the world with the latest information and products to help create healthy drinking water. The company has experts on staff to answer any and all questions consumers might have while reading through the website as well.

via http://www.speechtechnologygroup.com/speech-blog - Is the the future of reading - listening? Through text to speech technology this is now becoming reality…… source:  google.com Los Angeles, CA — ( SBWIRE ) — 08/27/2012 — The writers of Water Ionizers Made Easy! recently announced that the ebook, which is available on Amazon.com , will feature text ...

New approach promises more accurate speech recognition software

Researchers around the globe are looking for ways to improve speech technology…

Source: google.com

Research from NTNU is attempting to recognize human speech more accurately by detecting ho...

Research from NTNU is attempting to recognize human speech more accurately by detecting how we use our vocal tract to produce sound (Image: Shutterstock)

Researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) are combining two of the best-known approaches to automatic speech recognition to build a better and language-independent speech-to-text algorithm that can recognize the language being spoken in under a minute, transcribe languages on the brink of extinction, and make the dream of ever present voice-controlled electronics just a little bit closer.

The exponential yearly improvements in processing power we are seeing give hope that we are quickly moving toward superbly accurate and responsive speech recognition – and yet, things aren’t quite that simple. Even though this technology is slowly making its way into our phones, tablets and personal computers, it’ll still be some time before keyboards disappear from our digital lives altogether.

Achieving accurate, real-time speech recognition is no easy feat. Even assuming that the sound acquired by a device can be completely stripped of background noise (which isn’t always the case), there is hardly a one-to-one correspondence between the waveform detected by a microphone and the phoneme being spoken. Different people speak the same language with different nuances – accents, lisps and other articulation defects. Other factors such as age, gender, health and education also play a big role in altering the sound that reaches the microphone.

In other words, faster processors alone are useless, because we also need a robust plan of action to use all that number-crunching power the right way – with efficient, reliable computer algorithms that can figure out how to see through the incredible variety of sounds that can come out of our mouths and accurately transcribe what we are saying.

The NTNU researchers are now pioneering an approach that, if it can be fully exploited, may lead to a big leap in the performance of speech-to-text applications. They demonstrated that the mechanics of human speech are fundamentally the same across all people and across all languages, and they are now training a computer to analyze the pressure of sound waves captured by the microphone to determine which parts of the speech organs were used to produce a phoneme.

Many of the most successful speech recognition software available today asks users to provide personal information about themselves, including age group and accent, before they even attempt to transcribe human speech for the first time. When creating a new profile, users are also often asked to read some text to first calibrate the software parameters.

This is because speech recognition software often uses data fed by users to continuously improve its accuracy. It often uses probabilistic tools – namely, Bayesian inference – to estimate the probability of a certain sound being spoken given the user’s speech patterns that it has learned over time. This means the quality of the transcripts can sensibly improve after the program has collected a critical amount of data on the user. On the flip-side, speech recognition may not be too accurate right after a new user profile has been created.

An alternative to the statistical approach described above is to have humans study sounds, words and sentence structure for a given language and deduce rules which are then implemented into the software. For instance, different phonemes show different resonant frequencies, and the typical ranges for these frequencies can be programmed into the software to help it detect the sound more accurately.

The system developed at NTNU is a blend of the two approaches: it collects data to learn about the user’s speech nuances and improve accuracy over time but, crucially, it also incorporates a rule-based approach that is based on phonetics – the study of the sounds of human speech.

Detecting the pressure of sound waves on the microphone could mean achieving higher accuracy than was previously possible. As an example, sounds can be classified as voiced (in which vocal cords vibrate) and voiceless (in which they do not). The analysis of the pressure of sound waves on the microphone can detect the vibration of the vocal cords directly rather than deducing it from the peak frequencies captured by the microphone.

Because the anatomy of speech is the same across all humans, one of the strengths of the system is that it is completely language-independent. Therefore, unlike previous approaches, it can be easily adapted to a new language without much work at all, opening the door to idioms spoken by minor groups for which a commercial speech-to-text software isn’t a viable solution.

The team is now looking to develop a language-independent module that they can use to design competitive speech recognition products. Such software could also do very well transcribing text in more than one language as, the researchers say, it only takes the system 30 to 60 seconds to identify a given spoken language.

via http://www.speechtechnologygroup.com/speech-blog - Researchers around the globe are looking for ways to improve speech technology… Source:  google.com Research from NTNU is attempting to recognize human speech more accurately by detecting how we use our vocal tract to produce sound (Image: Shutterstock ) Researchers at the Norwegian University of Sc ...

Speech Recognition Technology: Past, Present, and Future

Speech technology has come a long way…

source: google.com

Transcription began with doctors dictating into recorders and transcriptionists using Dictaphone machines to type out the report using a typewriter on carbon paper.  Mistakes were difficult to correct.  Then it evolved into electronic sound files sent and electronic hand-typed reports being emailed back. Now technology has advanced so much that software can literally type out what a doctor is saying and achieve about 85% accuracy after learning the doctor’s speech patterns and habits. Learning software! What’s next? An artificial intelligence named HAL mechanically intones “Good morning, Dave” to every doctor and types out what you’re going to say before you even say it?

Speech recognition is very much in use by today’s physicians. What this means for the growing body of qualified medical transcriptionists is that in order to stay competitive in this ever-changing field you might consider diversifying your skill set. Some transcriptionists will need to transfer their skills to editing medical reports rather than transcribing them. In 2009 Career Step conducted a survey of 187 companies and what we discovered is that 30% of them use SRT (speech recognition technology). More and more MTSOs are having their MTs do a combination of straight transcription and editing. M*Modal, for example, have their MTs do, on average, about 40% straight transcription and 60% editing.

Believe it or not, the concept of speech recognition technology has been around since the 1930s! At the 1964 World’s Fair in New York, IBM unveiled a speech recognition program called “Shoebox” that could respond to 16 spoken words, converting them to electrical impulses. It was a remarkable beginning. Eventually the military recognized the benefits of this technology and unloaded some funding into researching its capabilities. By the end of the 1970s, SRT was available for commercial use for a pretty penny. Installation and use of the technology could cost up to $100,000!

From here, SRT evolved into two different methodologies: automated messaging responses tailored to call center use and speech-to-text applications. More and more companies were using automated systems to troubleshoot calls or field them in specific directions in order to better utilize human representatives. The speech-to-text possibilities were slower in coming to light. Dragon Systems, now an industry leader in the technology, was one of the first to develop a PC application capable of recognizing 8,000 words.

Today, speech recognition capabilities are being explored and expanded in many different industries and venues. Not only can your computer and phone talk back to you, now so can your car with the advent of systems like Synch. The possibilities are seemingly endless and new ideas are being generated every day. As the technology improves, so does the price. The viability of using this software as a production enhancement has become a reality for many physicians. Recently Career Step introduced the new Medical Transcription Editor program, which utilizes SRT software developed by one of the industry leaders, M*Modal. This program was created to answer the growing demand of transcription companies for MTs to have editing skills added to their MT repertoire.

Ultimately, the thing to remember is that SRT does not replace MT. MTSOs, demand an accuracy rate in the high 90th percentile—far above the best any VR system can produce. Maybe at some point down the line if humans are reduced to batteries or robots are running around as personal servants, then—maybe then—a form of speech recognition technology may be a threat to human medical transcriptionists. Until that date however, nothing will replace the human brain, so rest easy!

via http://www.speechtechnologygroup.com/speech-blog - Speech technology has come a long way… source:  google.com Transcription began with doctors dictating into recorders and transcriptionists using Dictaphone machines to type out the report using a typewriter on carbon paper.  Mistakes were difficult to correct.  Then it evolved into electronic sound ...

Clarion Launches TTS for Social Media Apps

Now your car becomes a mobile device with text-to-speech technology

Clarion has released two applications that allow users to access Facebook and Twitter in their cars and post to the sites using text-to-speech technology.

The applications are FB4car and Tweet4car. They were designed for in-vehicle use via Clarion’s Next GATE smartphone controller for the iPhone. When the iPhone is connected to Next GATE in the vehicle, users can update their status, check in, and reply to postings via voice support from Nuance Communications’ Vlingo products.

Additionally, Next GATE integrates DriveSuite4car. This app lets users access VL4car (Voice Launcher), News4car, Weather4car, Calendar4car, and Contacts4car.

Next GATE controls applications on smartphones, allowing for advanced functionality. Bluetooth functionality allows for hands-free calling and enables iPhone features such as voice dialing and voice activation. 

In addition to Tweet4car and FB4car, other app partners include TuneIn, Pandora, INRIX Traffic, and Odyssey, with a series of new apps coming soon.

via http://www.speechtechnologygroup.com/speech-blog - Now your car becomes a mobile device with text-to-speech technology Source:  speechtechmag.com Clarion has released two applications that allow users to access Facebook and Twitter in their cars and post to the sites using text-to-speech technology. The applications are FB4car and Tweet4car. They we ...

Friday, August 24, 2012

China Mobile takes a chance on speech recognition buy

Mobile carrier invests millions of dollars in speech recognition and text to speech technology for the Chinese market…

Source google.com

China Mobile has agreed to buy 15 percent or 70.3 million shares in voice recognition company Anhui USTC iFlytek Co.  The acquisition will amount to 1.36 billion yuan, or $214 million, at 19.40 yuan a piece.  Once the acquisition is finalized, China Mobile will collaborate with iFlytek for Mandarin voice recognition.  Having a voice recognition technology that recognizes Mandarin will surely help Chinese consumers with their hands-free tasks.  It’s not a secret that Apple’s Siri has some trouble recognizing foreign speech patterns.

via http://www.speechtechnologygroup.com/speech-blog - Mobile carrier invests millions of dollars in speech recognition and text to speech technology for the Chinese market… Source  google.com China Mobile has agreed to buy 15 percent or 70.3 million shares in voice recognition company Anhui USTC iFlytek Co.  The acquisition will amount to 1.36 billion ...

Saturday, August 18, 2012

Reviving Old Laptops, Migrating Google Data, and the Communal Tablet Problem

Some interesting tidbits from the computer world…


Revive Your Slow, Overheating Laptop

Old laptops can suck after years of heavy use, but Whitson goes over a few ways you can revive yours and keep it useful for years to come.

The New Way to Migrate Your Google Accounts and Data
Migrating data from one Google account to another, or even just downloading that data for backup purposes, used to be a huge pain in the butt. Now it isn’t.

Is eInk really better for my eyes than my iPad?
Staring at a screen for a long time is bad for your eyes, so is an iPad really worse than an eInk display? Whitson decided to find out the answer.

The Communal Tablet Problem
Tablets were designed as individual consumption devices, but we tend to share them a lot. This is a problem, because they can contain a lot of private data we may not want our friends to see. Thorin elaborates on this problem and offers a few solutions.

How Thorin Hated Grocery Shopping and How He Fixed It
Grocery shopping is not the sort of thing everyone enjoys. Thorin would go so far to say that he hates it. Hoping to make the process less painful, he devised a way to fix the problem with a combination of delivered products and simplified recipes/shopping lists.

Questions and Answers

Reviving Old Laptops, Migrating Google Data, and the Communal Tablet ProblemEach week we answer five questions from readers and listeners. Here’s what we tackled this week.

What is your microphone setup on the podcast?
Well, you might not want to know when listening to this week’s episode as I forgot to record myself and I’m kind of hard to hear, but our setup is actually pretty good when I’m not screwing things up. It’s also cheap. Thanks to a reader recommendation, I picked up a Presonus AudioBox 44 VSL as our audio interface. It sounds really great, has four inputs, and is only $300 (that’s fairly cheap for this kind of box). For the podcast we use two Samson C01 condenser mics, which are about the cheapest good condensers you can get and do well for just standard speech. For the third mic, we’re currently using a Shure SM58 I had lying around but will probably get another C01 one of these days for consistency’s sake. So long as the room’s quiet and there are no technical difficulties, it works very well. For remote guests, we just record from Skype and our guests have different microphones so it varies. We’re not perfect yet, and we don’t have anyone manning the computer while recording, but one of these days we’ll get it right!

Is there a user and data migration tool for Windows?
Yep, it’s called Windows Easy Transfer.

I like Google Drive and SkyDrive better than Dropbox. Why do you guys say it’s the best?
It has more features, like automatic photo download, great third-party app integration, tons of tools that support it, lots of ways to make it work better for you (such as limiting upload speeds and transferring data via the local network when possible), and more. It’s just ahead of the competition because it has been around longer. That’s another reason we’re so fond of it, too—we’ve been using it for a long time and love it. If you like the new stuff and it works great for you, you’re probably not missing out on anything in Dropbox that would make you want to switch. Stick with what works best. That said, if it’s because the other options are cheaper, you can get a ton of space for free via Dropbox’s referral system. Sure, SkyDrive gives you a ton of free space right away, but if you like Dropbox’s feature set you technically can earn a lot of free space from them. Even though I pay for the service, I still have 16GB I’ve earned through referrals. If I didn’t sync absolutely everything, that would be a lot of room to play.

If you want to know more about our thoughts on cloud syncing services, check out this comparison of file syncing services, this look at Google Drive versus Dropbox, and this pricing comparison of all the services.

Downloads of the Week

Reviving Old Laptops, Migrating Google Data, and the Communal Tablet ProblemEach week we talk about our favorite downloads. Here are our picks for this week.

Windows 8 (Windows, Obviously)
Microsoft released the Windows 8 RTM to developers and TechNet subscribers today, but if you want to sneak a peek at what’s coming in the final version of Windows 8, you can download a trial of the Enterprise version right now.

Download Windows 8

SendRail (OS X)
SendRail is possible the simplest file sharing app we’ve come across, and we’ve seen our fair share of ways to send files online. It connects to your Facebook and Gmail accounts so that you can click a file on your Mac, press a command key, type a name, and know that your file will get to your friend as quickly as possible.

Download SendRail

XBMC Nightly Builds (Android)
XBMC was announced for Android back in July, with the caveat that the software would not be available in the Google Play store until it was stable across a wide range of devices. However, if you don’t mind doing a little tinkering with your Android device, nightly builds are now available in the XDA Developers forums.

Download XBMC for Android Nightly Builds

CallBar (iOS)
Regardless of what you’re doing on your iPhone, if you get a phone call you have to stop. The call screen takes over the entire device, whatever you’re doing be damned. CallBar fixes this problem by replacing the screen with an unobtrusive notification bar.

Download CallBar

Dictation (Chrome)
Google Chrome has a built-in speech recognition system, but you can only use it in certain places. Dictation is a webapp that uses Chrome’s speech recognition engine, but allows you to dictate much larger chunks of text right inside a simple webapp.

Try Dictation

via http://www.speechtechnologygroup.com/speech-blog - Some interesting tidbits from the computer world… By  Lifehacker  Revive Your Slow, Overheating Laptop Old laptops can suck after years of heavy use, but Whitson goes over a few ways you can revive yours and keep it useful for years to come. The New Way to Migrate Your Google Accounts and Data Migra ...

Google introduces 13 new languages to voice search

Speech technology for the global community…

Google is now offering its Voice Search service in 13 new languages, confirms Bertrand Damiba, Product Manager at Google in an official blog post today. Google, with its Voice Search service aims to allow users to make their searches quick while on-the-go. The 13 new languages that Google Voice Search now supports include -  Basque, Bulgarian, Catalan, European Portuguese, Finnish, Galician, Hungarian, Icelandic, Norwegian, Romanian, Serbian, Slovak and Swedish. The service had been available previously across 29 languages, and now with the addition of 13 new languages, Google has upped the count to 42 languages, while supporting accents across 46 countries. Here, the post adds that now 100 million new speakers can use Google's Voice Search service, courtesy the addition of 13 new languages. 

The trend to broader language coverage also continues in the IVR space. Speech Technology Group is offering the 64 bit Microsoft speech engine with 26 languages for ASR and TTS for server based applications.

Elaborating further on the way Google goes about doing things, the post explains that for every new language, they are usually required to collect hundreds of thousands of utterances from their volunteers. Here, the post notes that although the search giant has been at speech recognition for quite a while now, the new task meant the team had to face some unique challenges. Detailing a little more on this, the post adds that quite unlike languages like Romanian that follows predictable pronunciation rules, languages like Swedish required the folks at Google to employ native speakers to help them with the pronunciations for several words. Once this was done, the scientists then built a machine learning system based on that data to predict the pronunciation of other Swedish words. 

 

The post further adds that Google has started rolling out the change across to its users and that it would continue to do so over the next week. Those who own devices running Android 2.2 or later and can spot the microphone icon on their Google Search widget on the homescreen will be required to only tap the icon to starting using the Voice Search service, whereas others can download the application from Google Play. Users, however, need to note that they can speak one language at a time, and to be able to use the aforementioned languages, they may be required to change their language settings.  

 

Have you used it  yet? Why not let us know your experience with it?





via http://www.speechtechnologygroup.com/speech-blog - Speech technology for the global community… ...

We are in the middle of a paradigm shift - Google says voice is the future of web search, introduces Siri-like app for iOS

Five years ago nobody would have seriously thought that Apple's Siri could potentially be a threat to Google search..…

Google told reporters today that the future of web search looks identical to Apple’s Siri, admitting, “if we are going to build the search of the future, we will have to solve difficult technology issues like speech recognition and natural language.” In a presentation to the media, Google noted that it current services 100 billion queries per month. However, it noted that the future of search will be based on context, not on queries. To achieve that, Google will need to follow the lead of Apple’s Siri, which was designed to figure out the question users were posing, rather than simply finding potential answers to property formed questions. After Apple introduced Siri as a feature on the iPhone 4S last fall, observers began to realize that if Apple fields users’ questions directly, it can replace Google as the middleman for all sorts of information that Google currently monetizes with paid search results. Apple’s Siri also integrates in particular with services like Yelp and Wolfram Alpha, which provide information on local businesses and general knowledge in ways that cut Google out of the picture entirely. Google added voice-based question and answer services to Android 4.1, but the race to add new features to the Android platform is complicated by the fact that new versions have very slow adoption, in large part because Google’s partners have little incentive to provide updates to their customers.

According to Google’s own data from August 1, only 0.8% of Android users visiting its Google Play app market are on the latest Android 4.1 “Jelly Bean” release. A full 80 percent of the active user base are suck with a version of Android 2.x, which came out 2010. In contrast, Apple just noted that 80 percent of iOS users are running the latest iOS 5. Apple has also sold more Siri-capable iPhone 4S units than all of its previous generation of iPhone combined. To get its own Siri-like features in front of users, Google will be releasing its Voice Search” feature for iOS as a third party app “within the next couple of days,” noting that it submitted the app “a week or so” ago. The app appears nearly identical in appearance to Siri (above), something that could trigger issues with Apple approving the title in the App Store. Apple could also refuse to approve the app under its policy of blocking third party apps that substantial replace existing bundled apps, something the company says it does to avoid “user confusion.”

Apple previously held up approval of Google Voice for over a year, and kept Google’s Latitude friend finder app in limbo for two years as it considered the features. This left Google to rely upon web app alternatives to native titles in the App Store.

via http://www.speechtechnologygroup.com/speech-blog - Five years ago nobody would have seriously thought that Apple's Siri could potentially be a threat to Google search..… By   AppleInsider  Google told reporters today that the future of web search looks identical to Apple’s Siri, admitting, “if we are going to build the search of the future, we will ...

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Google escalates competition with new voice search app

iPhone users now get the best of both world - Apple's Siri and Google's speech enabled search …

The search giant Google has launched a fresh version of its voice-based search app for Apple’s iPhone and iPad. Google claimed that new search technology will unite web-based email and its search engine together. The application will allow iPhone and iPad users to get all the information they require about weather, movie shows or anything else with the help of this new application. iPhone and iPad users will now be able to use more much more accurate voice services on apple hardware, this is sure to ramp up the battle between Apple and Google. Following this, Apple announced that Google’s YouTube app will be no longer pre-loaded in its future iPhone versions.

Similar to Apple’s Siri technology, Google’s new search will let users to ask questions verbally through an android device. The company launched this exclusive apple version shortly after it had launched the similar for android software few months back. It also announced that the company will be launching a new service which will let users to integrate their personal emails with the searches on company’s official website. Apart from this, several other voice-based search apps for Android phones have been launched previously that gives users voice-activation services like Siri technology by apple.

Google Search’s senior vice president, Amit Singhal wrote in his blog post that, “Often the most natural way to ask a question is by asking aloud, So we’ve combined our speech-recognition expertise, understanding of language and the Knowledge Graph so that Voice Search can better interpret your questions and sometimes speak the answers back as full sentences. This has been available on Android for a few weeks and people love it. It’ll soon be available on your iPhone or iPad (iOS version 4.2+).”

Later he said that the new search service will be truly universal and will provide all the required information that is available anywhere on the web. During its initial stage, the service will be put on a field trial that will work only with Google’s own messenger service, Gmail.

Date: August 13, 2012

Leave a comment


via http://www.speechtechnologygroup.com/speech-blog - iPhone users now get the best of both world - Apple's  Siri and Google's speech enabled search … The search giant Google has launched a fresh version of its voice-based search app for Apple’s iPhone and iPad . Google claimed that new search technology will unite web-based email and its search engine ...

Ask Ziggy Closes $5 Million Strategic Investment – Expands “Siri” Class Speech Recognition Across Android, Apple and Microsoft Products

Investment capital is starting to focus on conversational speech recognition providers…

Ask Ziggy, the world’s most advanced Natural Speech search engine for mobile devices, has closed a $5 million round of funding with a publicly traded multinational corporation and expanded its list of strategic partners. Working closely with Nuance Communications, Ask Ziggy will use its most recent round of funding to deliver downloadable Mobile Apps for nearly all Android, Apple and Microsoft mobile devices by Q3 2012.

“Each major funding event is a milestone in the growth of a rapidly developing company like Ask Ziggy,” explained Shai Leib, CEO and Ask Ziggy Visionary. “Although we’ve had prior key investments via Sunbelt Technologies Management LLC, when major publicly traded multinational companies begin to recognize the value of Ask Ziggy’s Cloud-based contextual search solutions, as was the case with this strategic investment, we have to celebrate. Ask Ziggy’s Natural Speech search engine empowers and expands the user experience and convenience for all mobile devices, not merely cell phones. Speaking directly into a device and getting a voice reply, with zero typing required, is here at last. This funding will now enable Ask Ziggy to deliver multi-language, accent independent, Natural Speech Personal Assistant Apps running on all devices, including cellular handsets, tablets and even computing headsets, which will immediately change our world.”

“Our product relationship with Ask Ziggy will intensify over the next few months,” said Jeffrey J. Jacobsen, Sr. Advisor to the CEO and Golden-i Program Mgr. for Kopin Corporation. “Combining Ziggy’s 22-language Cloud-based Natural Speech search engine with Golden-i’s world-class embedded real-time speech and gesture interface will rapidly transform ‘Siri’ class speech recognition from merely amusing into a fast, accurate, professional-grade access to information, and entirely ‘Hands-Free,’” he commented.

“Once our Golden-i computing headset achieved 97% or better speech recognition accuracy across multiple languages, the problem we faced was how to extend the convenience of Golden-i’s speech recognition accuracy across the World Wide Web or in a Cloud,” continued Mr. Jacobsen. “After testing Ask Ziggy’s contextual speech recognition, the answer was clear: deliver superior noise-cancelled speech recognition from Golden-i to the World Wide Web, and then allow Ask Ziggy to harness the world’s best server resources employing Ask Ziggy’s AI-assisted contextual speech recognition within the World Wide Web itself.”

Ask Ziggy also separately announced that its Software Development Kit (SDK) will be available shortly and that its first client will be the world’s first multi-billion dollar multinational corporation to use a Personal Assistant voice SDK for international transactions.

About Ask Ziggy

Ask Ziggy of Sacramento, CA is a revolutionary new voice recognition technology and Personal Voice Assistant (“PVA”) incorporating unique Artificial Intelligence for Android-, Apple- and Microsoft-based cell phones, tablets and mobile devices. Ask Ziggy is a pioneer in the field of voice queries for mobile devices and has processed over 3 million voice searches since its inception this year.

Contacts

Ask ZiggyShai Leib, 916-435-0444
CEO
shai@ask-ziggy.comorInvestor & Media Relations:Andy Pham, 702-450-8866
Director
andy@ask-ziggy.comorGolden-iProducts, Accessories and RelationshipsJeffrey Jacobsen, 831-636-5556
Golden-i Program Manager
JJacobsen@kopin.com


via http://www.speechtechnologygroup.com/speech-blog - Investment capital is starting to focus on conversational speech recognition providers… Ask Ziggy, the world’s most advanced Natural Speech search engine for mobile devices, has closed a $5 million round of funding with a publicly traded multinational corporation and expanded its list of strategic p ...

Cloud Based Solutions Grow Mobile Speech Recognition

Cloud-based speech recognition technology allows to have the heavy lifting done off the device. This will make it possible to deploy extremely powerful technology on mobile devices.…

Cloud based solutions are providing impetus for mobile speech recognition platform sales, with revenue growth forecast at 68% through 2017, according to research.

 “Reaching a varied group of developers working on different OS and hardware platforms makes cloud based solutions the optimum approach to enabling the masses,” said mobile devices, content and applications senior analyst Michael Morgan for market research company ABI Research, which authored the report. “It is the approach of using network based solutions that will drive the rapid increase in cloud based revenues.”

Historically, mobile speech recognition was delivered to consumers through relationships between device OEMs and platform vendors. The other route to the consumer came through virtual assistant applications that were often developed by the platform vendors. Smaller application development efforts lacked the resources and expertise to bring the benefit of speech recognition to their products. This dynamic has kept speech recognition trapped in functionally specific applications.

“Leveraging the cloud as a delivery mechanism, platform vendors can enable nearly any application developer that wishes to make its user interface experience more efficient,” adds mobile devices, content and applications senior practice director Jeff Orr. “ABI Research expects that consumers will first see the benefits of these efforts in mobile banking and retail applications.”

via http://www.speechtechnologygroup.com/speech-blog - Cloud-based speech recognition technology allows to have the heavy lifting done off the device. This will make it possible to deploy extremely powerful technology on mobile devices.… Cloud based solutions are providing impetus for mobile speech recognition platform sales, with revenue growth forecas ...

TeleNav Inc. : Telenav Adds Offline GPS Navigation to Scout for iPhone

Speech recognition on the phone for navigation songs like a good idea when you don't have a signal and your cloud-based speech recognizer is not available.…
08/14/2012 | 09:48am US/Eastern

SUNNYVALE, CA — (Marketwire) — 08/14/12 — Telenav®, Inc. (NASDAQ: TNAV), the leader in personalized navigation, published today an update to Scout™ in the Apple® App Store, to include Always There Navigation, downloadable offline navigation that provides GPS navigation service at all times, regardless of whether or not drivers are in wireless coverage. Scout also now comes with free speech recognition, allowing users to conduct hands-free local business and address searches with voice commands.

“When you are driving in an unfamiliar area, the last thing you want to worry about is losing your GPS navigation if you drive out of wireless coverage and take a wrong turn. With our latest version, we are ensuring that this will no longer be a concern for our users,” said Ryan Drake, Scout product manager at Telenav. “Scout will guide you anywhere, anytime — with or without wireless coverage.”

Offline Navigation

Scout’s Always There Navigation is now available for download by U.S. region — Western, Central or Eastern. With a simple download, Scout’s voice-guided, turn-by-turn navigation service is now accessible with or without wireless coverage. Customers always have the option of downloading different regions at any time to ensure they will have GPS navigation if they are traveling.

“We originally launched offline navigation last year as part of the AT&T Navigator iPhone app,” continued Drake. “It’s been a popular feature that we are now very happy to offer to our Scout iPhone customers.”

Speech Recognition

With the addition of speech recognition, Scout makes it safer, faster and simpler to search for nearby destinations. With the touch of one button, a user can activate voice commands and hands-free search and begin speaking to Scout immediately with any command, such as “Find Starbucks” or “Drive Home.” Based on each voice query, Scout will either find nearby results or create the best route summaries based on traffic and current location.

Download Scout Today

The updated Scout for iPhone is available today in the Apple® App Store. The lowest priced option currently available for iPhones, offline navigation is available for $9.99 per year or $2.99 per month and includes additional premium features. Telenav offers a free 30-day trial for new customers. Speech recognition is available to all users as part of the free version of Scout for iPhone.

A video of new features is available online.

Screenshots are available on the Telenav Flickr page.

About Telenav, Inc.

Telenav’s mission is to help make people’s lives easier, less stressful, more fun, and more productive while they are on the go. Our personalized navigation services help people make faster and smarter daily decisions about where to go, when to leave, how to get there, and what to do when they arrive. We have approximately 34 million users worldwide — connecting with us from mobile phones, tablets, computers, cars and developer applications. Our customers have scouted more than 1.6 billion personal journeys since 2007.

We aim to be everywhere people need us. Our partners are wireless carriers, automobile manufacturers and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), app developers, advertisers and agencies, as well as enterprises large and small.QNX Software Systems, Rogers, Sony, Sprint Nextel, Telcel, T-Mobile UK, T-Mobile US, U.S. Cellular, Verizon Wireless and Vivo Brazil. You can also find us in mobile app stores and on the web at www.telenav.com and www.scout.me.

Follow Telenav on Twitter at www.twitter.com/telenav or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/telenav.

Copyright 2012 Telenav, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

TNAV-C

Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=2064632
Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=2064635

Media Contact: Aamir Syed Telenav, Inc. 408.207.4081 aamirs@telenav.com Investor Relations: Cynthia Hiponia The Blueshirt Group for Telenav, Inc. 415.217.4966 IR@telenav.com

Source: Telenav

News Provided by Acquire Media

via http://www.speechtechnologygroup.com/speech-blog - Speech recognition on the phone for navigation songs like a good idea when you don't have a signal and your cloud-based speech recognizer is not available.…   08/14/2012 | 09:48am US/Eastern SUNNYVALE, CA — (Marketwire) — 08/14/12 — Telenav®, Inc. (NASDAQ: TNAV), the leader in personalized navigatio ...

Monday, August 13, 2012

Apple Siri vs Micromax Aisha Video

an Indian personal assistant compared to Apple's Siri…

via http://www.speechtechnologygroup.com/speech-blog - an Indian personal assistant compared to Apple's Siri… Of all the companies that have decided to take on Apples voice control personal assistant, Siri, Aisha from Micromax is one that really caught our eye.We asked both Siri and Aisha a bunch of questions. The results were quite surprising, especial ...

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Google Translate Update Adds Visual Translation Support

Cool new feature offers optical character recognition in addition to speech recognition and other input options to enter the text that should be translated.…

Google Translate camera

With the latest update to the Android version of Google Translate, you no longer have to type in those language queries.

The search giant has integrated Google Goggles’ optical character recognition (OCR) technology into the translate app, making it possible for a user to simply point their smartphone camera at unfamiliar text, click, brush, and translate, without having to manually type in words.

To use the new feature, press the camera button in the bottom right of the screen, point and tap to freeze the photo, then brush your finger over the particular segment you want translated, and a translation pops onto the screen. The usual text-to-speech option remains, to audibly learn what a sign, menu, or book says.

This update makes Google Translate for Android one of the most intelligent and learning-intensive apps the company has produced, Etienne Deguine, associate product manager for Google Translate, said in a blog post.

The app currently supports character recognition for Czech, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portugese, Russian, Spanish, and Turkish. Google is working to add more languages to the list.

Google Translate is available for free in the Google Play store for Android 2.1 and up.

Google isn’t the first to take on visual translation technology, though. In late 2010, the World Lens app hit the iPhone, providing users a Spanish or English translation instantly when the camera lens is pointed at foreign words.

Once referred to as a “futuristic” app, World Lens is still available in the Apple App Store, updated to include Italian, and the ability to translate languages in both directions – from Spanish to English, or English to Spanish. The app is compatible with iOS 4.0 and later devices, including the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.


via http://www.speechtechnologygroup.com/speech-blog - Cool new feature offers optical character recognition in addition to speech recognition and other input options to enter the text that should be translated.… With the latest update to the Android version of Google Translate, you no longer have to type in those language queries. The search giant has ...