Robotic tongues improving speech recognition..

 

  The article we found today, can be read here.

  But, the video below kind of "tells the story"!

      Pretty cool... Eh?

 

Now there is voice dial for the iPhone!

 

 A company named "Makayama" has released a voice dial for the iPhone, with interesting features..

 

Record voice samples for any address book contact - speak to dial it's number.

It's multilingual, and semi-trainable.

    Here's the YouTube video:

 It's received rather glowing reviews from Engadget & Gizmodo, who can both be tough to impress.

  The manufacturer's article can be read here.

 

Google + speech-recognition indexing of videos!

 

 Google is now utilizing speech recognition indexing of the spoken audio in videos! Users you can search for spoken text in a video, but for now, only in selected videos only (Political Videos).

 

 Check out the new feature by adding the Google Election Video Search Gadget to your iGoogle page, or view the gadget on their as a standalone page. The gadget works by adding little yellow markers to the timeline letting you know where the word occurs.

 Google isn't the first site to combine speech recognition with video search. Blinkx and EveryZing offer the services; But now that the 800 pound gorilla has entered the online video spoken audio search world - look for this market to evolve quickly, and our bet is on Google for leading the pack, of course.

 

A how-to/helpful "Space" you really should visit..

 

 We won't waste any ink on the Windows Live Space referenced here;
It has to be visited to be understood.
But be assured it's not a complicated, ugly/busy site that's cryptic in its content.

If you have any inclination, now or soon, to begin using the ultra-powerful
Macros for Windows Speech Recognition you must visit this website... !!

  Windows Speech Recognition Macros

 

ENJOY!

 

A speech-driven PIM on steroids, from Speereo!

 

 Speereo's PR Manager, who left a kind comment to our last posting about their super-cool Voice Translator has alerted us to another product, titled "Sapie", which has received rather glowing reviews by 3rd parties.

 

 We haven't tested it yet, but here is a pretty comprehensive overview/review of Sapie, that is well worth reading.

 In the meantime.. Take a look at this performance comparison chart!

 

 

We hope to be speaking with Speereo's PR Manager, Gleb Klimshin fairly soon and he's promised to discuuss some Wireless Speech Programs they've developed..If they are up to par with Speereo's other products..

 

National Instruments - programming w/ speech!

 

 National Instruments "LabVIEW Real-Time Modules", that develop reliable and deterministic applications deployed to a variety of scalable hardware targets is vigorously now using Windows Speech Recognition ("WSR") to both program and test their development.

 

 A video is worth a few thousand words:
  Click here to see a very interesting demonstration...!!

 

Nuance vs Vlingo - threatens Yahoo Voice Search?

 

  Via XEconomy, today;

 "If a Texas district court grants an injunction sought by Burlington, MA-based Nuance Communications (NASDAQ: NUAN), it could force Yahoo to shut down the voice-enabled version of its mobile search platform. The search tool is powered by software from Vlingo, a Cambridge, MA-based startup Nuance sued yesterday for alleged patent infringement.

 The Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) platform, called oneSearch with Voice, works on Blackberry Pearl, Blackberry Curve, and Blackberry 8800 series smartphones, and allows users to enter Web search queries such as “Boston Red Sox scores” or “United Airlines Flight 541″ simply by speaking them into the device. Vlingo’s deal to get its speech recognition technology included in oneSearch was seen as a major coup for the Harvard Square startup, which has about 35 employees and recently closed a $20 million Series B financing round led by Yahoo.

 Nuance filed its lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, a jurisdiction famous for favoring plaintiffs in patent-infringement cases. Xconomy obtained a copy of Nuance’s complaint. It alleges that Vlingo’s speech recognition software—including “without limitation, products and services Vlingo is supplying to Yahoo! oneSearch”—infringes on U.S. Patent No. 6,766,295, which was issued to Nuance engineers Hy Murviet and Ashvin Kannan in 2004. The patent covers a technique for making computerized transcription of a users’ speech more accurate over time using audio samples from multiple sessions such as phone calls.

 The suit seeks unspecified monetary damages and attorney fees, and also asks the court to “preliminarily and permanently restrain” Vlingo and its business partners from making, using, and selling the allegedly infringing software. Those partners would presumably include Yahoo's 'one search with Voice' platform."

 

Speech Analytics - an evolving business resource..

 

 Speech analytics technology has evolved in recent years, providing organizations with insight into sales, service and products gleaned from the voice biometrics of customers.

 It has also brought a dilemma for organizations deploying it - Does it belong under the hands-on management of the contact center? Or should marketing govern its use? Or maybe it should remain under the strict control of Business Intelligence (BI)?

 An important question organizations need to consider when they're purchasing speech analytics tools, according to Keith Dawson, senior analyst with Frost and Sullivan.

 "There is no one way to determine which is best -- different options are good at different points," Dawson said. "A lot of it is going to depend on where the purchaser's analytics culture is."

 Vendors that have developed speech analytics typically promote just the core speech analytics functions; Parsing recordings for meanings, establishing patterns and alerting users to unseen connections; but there are actually three primary philosophies for organizations purchasing speech analytics.

Businesses with entrenched speech technology in self service or other speech-recognition tools might take the "what's it doing re: in-house performance" approach.

In the contact center environment, agent performance optimization vendors are pushing the technology from the workforce optimization side. Speech analytics are a way to both measure agent skills, and train them as well.

When presented as a marketing tool/revenue producer, discussions on buying speech analytics turns from cost cutting to profits.
Contact center mangement has often concentrated only on cost control;
Average Handle Time ("AHT") or per-call Average Work Time ("AWT");
  and have mostly ignored profit and revenue.

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"They're going to have to collaborate with business people who don't care about the activities & performance inside the call center -- they care only about the outcomes," Dawson said.