THE POWER OF VOICE

VOICE RECOGNITION TECHNOLOGY HAS COME A LONG WAY FROM THE EARLY DAYS OF HANDS-FREE WORD PROCESS. RICHARD CONWAY REPORTS ON THE LATEST APPLICATIONS FOR VOICE RECOGNITION SOFTWARE.

Have you noticed how your children are starting to search the Internet with their voice?

In 1987 Star Trek: The Next Generation aired with Data using his voice to communicate with the ship’s computer. Twenty-nine years later, the fastest growing type of search has started to catch up; namely voice search.

We’re now in an era where technology is present in all aspects of our lives, from how we socialise, to how we maintain our fitness, to how we consume media and everything in between. Recently there has been more investment in ways to make technology easier to use, which has changed the ways people interact with companies, devices and each other.

One of the keys to the adoption of these new technologies is to make them cool. Being hands-free and chatting to your device seems to fulfil that requirement.

MESSAGING

For a while now, Facebook Messenger has allowed you to send a voice clip message, where you can record a message and play it back. In 2015, Facebook acquired Wit.ai – a voice and natural language interface start-up. Since then, they’ve been testing whether it might be possible to send a voice clip message that Facebook will automatically turn into text.

There are a number of applications you can add to your phone that can do this for you already; one such is Tribe, which recently launched Version 2 and can add subtitles to video messages. If the application recognises a ‘magic’ word, Tribe can offer up a helpful link.

For example, if you mention a product it will provide a link to that product on Amazon, while naming a location will link through to Google Maps – all making the whole conversation a lot more convenient!

No longer do you need to switch between interfaces to look up a meeting place that has been suggested or go hunting for what you’re trying to find. Voice recognition software could be a bit of a game changer in the way we interact on social media.

ASSISTANTS

Siri was one of the more socially recognised assistants to make waves in voice recognition, with people asking obscure questions to see what ‘she’ may answer with.