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Created by derek on Jul 27, 2009
Last updated: 04/06/12 at 06:42 PM
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@SkoutPR All good thanks. It proves that their list ex-spinvox list is really vintage :-)
http://twitter.com/allanedwards/statuses/25878696695
@optus hey Nic, the voicemail to txt service is working a treat :) dialing voicemail be gone! Thanks for helping me get it set up #spinvox
http://twitter.com/angusbooker/statuses/10354563857
@bensmithuk Do you want a Ribbit invite for your VM testing, its like Google Voice meets Spinvox. DM me yr email.
http://twitter.com/sammachin/statuses/10266743087
@bensmithuk I still love SpinVox - wish it had @HulloMails interface. Or rather wish Hullo did STT. Need different greetings per caller.
http://twitter.com/edent/statuses/10262058502
@RabbiShmuley I think SpinVox does.
http://twitter.com/Catahar1/statuses/9938532158
P.S. Does anyone still work for SpinVox? :(
http://twitter.com/PebbleTweets/statuses/9897171620
That’s right, today Nuance and SpinVox have become one company. The two companies that helped create and define the speech technology and voice-to-text markets have come together to meet the growing global demand for voice-to-text services.
Okay, so what does this mean? Without question there is an accelerating demand from carriers, consumers and enterprises for robust speech-enabled services and automated voice-to-text platforms – in fact, SpinVox already services nearly 100 million users worldwide. With that in mind, Nuance will leverage SpinVox’s carrier-grade voice-to-text infrastructure, network product portfolio, multi-language support and experienced UK-based development teams to further drive and accelerate adoption of voice-to-text around the world.
This is great news for customers who will benefit from both the technology strength and superior product and services delivery. There will be more services, more applications, highly accurate voice-to-text transcription and the best delivery platform available – no matter where you are in the world!
And existing SpinVox customers need not worry about any change or interruption in service. SpinVox voice-to-text services will remain unchanged – you can continue enjoying the benefits of reading your voicemails as text or speaking your voice-to-text SMS messages, emails, blog posts or social network updates anywhere you happen to be!
With the coming together of Nuance and SpinVox, 2010 promises to be a very exciting year that will benefit both the voice-to-text market and customers around the globe!
For more on today’s announcement, read the news release here.
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http://blog.spinvox.com/2009/12/30/speech-pioneers-nuance-and-spinvox-join-forces-to-advance-global-speech-technology-market/
In today’s blog we chat with SpinVox Language Manager Tamara Bermejo who provides insights on how Spanish language evolves in the SpinVox corpus.
First, tell us a little about yourself. What brought you to SpinVox?
My journey at SpinVox started in June 2006 when I joined to launch SpinVox’ first non-English language queue – Spanish of course! Flash forward to today (some three-and-a-half exhilarating years later!) and I would have to say I am excited by the contributions I’ve made on both the operational and technology fronts for what is the world’s leading voice-to-text service. It is pretty astounding to reflect that since joining the company I’ve helped build corpuses across a series of new and distinct languages, including; Spanish (plus its 10 Latin American Variants), Italian, Brazilian Portuguese and Catalan.
Sounds like you have a very unique and interesting role at SpinVox. What’s a typical day in the life of a Language Manager?
One of the aspects of the job that keep it so interesting and motivating is that there is no such thing as a typical day at SpinVox! But generally speaking, I start the day by analyzing in-house metrics against detailed quality trend statistics and then use that information to create relevant action plans. The rest of the day my team will partner with other departments within SpinVox to discuss and review how we implement improvements to the product we deliver – as it is our mission to continuously strive not only to meet but to exceed our customers’ expectations.
As a Language Manager you have to keep your finger on the evolutionary pulse of Spanish language across slang, new pop culture terms, you name it. Whew! How do you keep up?
It’s ironic that as a Madrilena thanks to this job I’ve increased my knowledge of the Spanish language since I left Spain! I’m very lucky to manage an excellent quality control team who, like me, are passionate both about our product and the way language evolves. Watching the way language changes in such a relatively short amount of time is fascinating, and, thanks to their excellent quality control we ensure we’re up-to-date with the latest slang and vocabulary in all of the languages we support.
How many new words a week/month does your team add to the SpinVox corpus?
It depends on a number of different factors such as the volume of voice-to-text message traffic received, the maturity of the language, etc. When we launch a new language the size and quality of our dictionary is impressive from day one. But because of the fast-evolving nature of the spoken word we find we are adding new words to the language’s corpus right from the moment of launch. As the language becomes more mature in the system, new word additions will take place on a less frequent basis. But, as part of our language management process we also remove words that have become less relevant to speakers of the language – in with the new, out with the old as they say!
What are some of the most unusual words that you’ve come across in the last year? And do you find there is much crossover of Spanish language pop culture terms with English terms (such as credit crunch, etc.)?
It’s very difficult for me to choose a few words that represent the 11 Spanish speaking countries where our service in present today. However, we have observed that SpinVox has not escaped the effects of globalization as terms such as ‘Facebook’, ‘Twitter’, ‘Messenger’ and ‘Tamiflu’ have become very common words used in the last year. And we have found English terms (or what is known as ‘Spanglish’ – a cross between English and Spanish) continue to be steadily incorporated by our Latin American users.
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http://blog.spinvox.com/2009/12/17/qa-with-spinvox-language-manager-tamara-bermejo/
Few would argue that teachers all over the world have one of the most difficult jobs out there – overworked, severely underpaid and not only tasked with teaching but often times surrogate parenting as well. In fact, according to the Centers for Disease Control, inner city high school teachers today have the number one most stressful job – and are the most likely professionals to develop an ulcer (and this is ahead of police officers and customer complaint workers!).
Then add to this the fact that students today learn much differently than they did 5, 10 or 15 years ago – solely using computers for information gathering and many getting their first mobile phone at the age of eight (yes, eight!).
So, all things considered, how can teachers bridge these seeming generation gaps and reach students in a way that they respond to while also facilitating the education process? One place to start is with the ubiquitous student mobile phone – and meeting in the middle via SMS text messaging (as youth today can text in excess of 3,000 messages a month!) – or more specifically, via voice-to-text conversion.
We recently spoke with some teachers about this approach and they shared some interesting insights in how voice-to-text could help them in the classroom today.
Keeping students informed of impending deadlines, tests and even extra credit opportunities is important to teachers. While yelling out the date reminder as students scurry out of class is one approach – another way to ensure students don’t forget important dates is to speak a text to their mobile phone so the reminder is saved and always available (and eschews the excuse that the dog ate my mobile – not one likely to be successful). Using a service such as SpinVox, with one click of a button the teacher can speak a blast text message to an entire class. Fast, easy and convenient!
The reverse approach can also be applied using speak-a-text from student to teacher. Should a student have a question about an assignment or upcoming exam, the student can use speak-a-text to the teacher and the message could be delivered as SMS to the teacher’s mobile phone, as an Email or could even be posted to a class intranet site so other students can benefit from the answer information as well. The latter approach would also provide teachers a tracking mechanism for student questions and for identifying opportunities to tweak the curriculum if needed.
Another great idea we heard was to use mobile speak-a-text to help garner higher class participation levels from at-risk students with perhaps poor writing skills. As a result the teacher can’t read the writing for the assignment and is unable to properly grade it. Or on the flipside the student is too embarrassed to submit assignments instead preferring to fail the class rather than show a perceived weakness. With speak-a-text these students can now better participate in classes that require ongoing updates – such as a Phys Ed class requiring a recap of lessons learned and program-required activities undertaken that week. This information can be emailed to the teacher any time using voice to text or as mentioned above, posted to a school-sponsored class intranet site.
There are so many opportunities to incorporate something as simple as mobile text into the classroom. Also recognizing voice-to-text opportunities, a consortium of universities have come together in recent years to further explore other applications of voice-to-text in the classroom with some pretty interesting results. To learn more, visit the Liberated Learning Consortium site here.
Have more ideas on how voice-to-text could be used in the classroom? Drop us a comment!
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http://blog.spinvox.com/2009/12/15/forget-the-apple-teachers-want-voice-to-text/
Today we continue our conversation with Anandh Maistry, General Manager for SpinVox AsiaPac. In yesterday’s Part 1 post we spoke with Anandh about his path to SpinVox. Today he shares some insights on the SpinVox Australia team, SpinVox partners in region including Optus and Telstra, and a hint at what the future holds for SpinVox in AsiaPac. Read on for more…!
Tell us a bit about the SpinVox Australia team.
We like to say the Australia team is lean (not mean!) and extremely effective. The team includes Andrew Cantle and Stuart Kelly who are the driving force of our AsiaPac commercial arm. And they are supported by Claire D’Alessandro, an expert in customer service delivery, and Shane Cole, who heads up the technical integration elements of our deployments so that we continuously deliver as planned and on time. This amazing crew has extensive carrier, commercial, operational, technical and product experience that enables them to create and deliver strategic value-adding solutions to our carrier partners’ product and marketing teams.
And it is pretty astounding to think that in the three years since SpinVox first came to the Australian shores, we have signed deals with the country’s largest tier-one carriers and expanded SpinVox’ presence ‘Down Under’ to 80 percent market share. This is a great testament to both the strength of the SpinVox service and the top notch team we have here on the ground.
There’s been a lot of activity in Australia this last year – first the launch of SpinVox voicemail-to-text with Telstra and now Optus. With these two partners, how many people in Australia now have access to SpinVox service? And what’s been user reaction to SpinVox ‘Down Under’?
With Telstra and Optus as customers, SpinVox will be available to approximately nine million Australians by the end of 2009 – and we’ll grow to more than 16 million in early 2010 as we unveil new services in the region…the facts about which will soon be revealed!
The SpinVox voicemail-to-text service has been extremely well received in Australia and we have seen especially strong uptake among business customers. And our service is also award-winning! In June Telstra’s Voice2Text service was recognized by Global Telecom Business magazine with a “Business Service Innovation” award.
So, what’s next for SpinVox in the Pacific Rim?
The growth opportunities for voice-to-text are not so much identified by market as by environments. Today the applications and opportunities for voice-to-text are innumerable – crossing a wide spectrum of segments be it wireless and wireline carriers, VoIP players, Unified Communications suppliers or new media companies, to name a few. Add into this the possibilities available through our API program which has launched voice-to-text for applications such as speak-an-email with nFinity, audio-to-text tags for iPadio’s phlogging (phone-to-Web blogging) service and family-friendly apps such as 0800TXTMUM – and the next year looks to be a very exciting time of growth for SpinVox in AsiaPac!
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http://blog.spinvox.com/2009/12/10/qa-with-anandh-maistry-of-spinvox-asiapac-part-2/
Today’s post is the first of a two-part conversation series with Anandh Maistry, General Manager for SpinVox AsiaPac…
Anandh, it seems you have lived all over the world – growing up in Sydney and working in Singapore, London, Beijing and Portland before returning to Australia. With so many diverse cultures I imagine you took with you some amazing experiences from all these places.
I started my travels fairly early in life. I was born in Durban, South Africa and immigrated to Australia in 1981. I’ve long had an interest in understanding the dynamics that shape different cultures around the world and I’ve been fortunate to explore this interest first-hand, living and working in some of the best cities in the world.
What were some of the most interesting business and cultural experiences you encountered?
Having worked in such varied business cultures it’s been really interesting to learn and experience how each culture works in its own unique way. Asia, for example, has a very distinctive business culture, and one very different to that of the USA or Europe. It’s expressed in many ways – such as simple rules like when to shake hands, how to address people, presenting credentials, punctuality, dress, etc. Learning and understanding these differences and similarities has played a key part in shaping who I am today both as a business leader and an individual.
And of all these places, is there a favorite? Your hometown Sydney perhaps?
There are two places that are dearer to me than the others, the first is Sydney, it is my home which has given me more than I can ever repay. I still get goose bumps every time I touch down in Sydney. And the second is Portland, as it was my entrée into the USA and also where my daughter was born.
So, what brought you to SpinVox?
The technology behind the service was the first hook – as it’s not very often an exciting new service comes about that has such global mass market relevancy. I also looked at SpinVox from a consumer perspective, especially as one who has had to deal with copious voicemails each day. The SpinVox proposition was to convert these voicemails and present them to me in text form, giving me the freedom and the ability to manage these according to the priority I allocated. So simple – and yet so needed!
And, having spent the last decade addressing customer demands for Unified Communications it’s clear that there is a need for much more innovation in this category. Logically, the next leap in unified messaging is voice-to-text which allows a more efficient handling of information files – which for today’s enterprise worker is a task growing at an exponential rate.
So not only did I find the service personally compelling and clearly relevant to a broad range of users regardless of profession or geography and, with so many carriers around the globe already offering the service-I knew this was a company and service I wanted to help further grow around the world.
…..Stay tuned to this blog tomorrow for Part 2 in the conversation series with Anandh and spotlight on SpinVox in Australia…
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http://blog.spinvox.com/2009/12/09/qa-with-spinvox-asiapac-general-manager-anandh-maistry/
Aussies are renowned for their colourful and straight forward communications style, so we know they’re going to love the newly-launched Optus Voice to Text™ service powered by SpinVox.
Optus is the second largest mobile operator in Australia so we’re more than excited that they announced the launch today.
This latest deal (SpinVox is also live with Telstra in Australia) means SpinVox is available to 80 per cent of the Australian population – so now, whether they’re at work, on one of their 10,000 beaches or at a barbie, Australians can all benefit from getting their voice messages as an SMS – leaving them more time to enjoy one of the most spectacular countries in the world.
And, Jim Jacques, Marketing Director at Optus agrees! As Jim told us: “Optus’ Voice to Text service is the simple and convenient way to receive a message when you miss a call. Whether you’re in a business meeting or you’ve got your hands full with children at the supermarket, sometimes you just can’t answer the phone and instantly reading an important message on your mobile can make life much easier.”
All new Optus consumer and small and medium business post-paid mobile customers will automatically receive a 14 day free* trial of Optus Voice to Text™ on activation. Existing Optus consumer and small and medium business mobile customers can opt in to the 14 day free trial by texting the word “ON” to 7746. At the end of the 14 day trial customers can choose to continue with the service for $6.99 per month which includes unlimited messages (Optus Mobile Fair Go™ policy applies).
To distinguish from thumb-typed texts, every SpinVox converted message will appear within speech marks and carry the ‘spoken through SpinVox’ tagline, ensuring customers recognise the difference in message style.
Great work by the SpinVox Australia team, headed by Anandh Maistry! We’ll hear from him later in the week in a two-parter which tells us how he came to work with SpinVox and outlines what’s going on for SpinVox in AsiaPac.
Beaut!
For more info on the Optus service check out www.optus.com.au/voicetotext
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http://blog.spinvox.com/2009/12/07/%e2%80%98no-worries%e2%80%99-more-aussies-get-spinvox-via-optus/
Oh yeah, you knew this day would come around….like it or not, the holiday gift buying season is on! Somehow every year it sneaks up on us and every year we grapple with the same old question – “What on earth am I going to get everyone this year?!”
Well, for folks in North America, Central and South America, Australia and Europe we have a suggestion for you – that’s right, you guessed it – SpinVox! SpinVox voicemail-to-text and speak-a-text services – that work on any handset or carrier network – are available from nearly 30 carriers around the world such as Telefonica across South America, Vodafone Spain, Bell Canada and Telstra in Australia, to name just a few. And many of our carrier partners offer a variety of service options ranging from a-la-carte to bundled mobile plans designed to meet a wide range of user and budget needs!
With SpinVox-powered voice-to-text service users can receive unlimited* voicemail-to-text messages as an SMS or email And everyone can benefit from voice-to-text – be it teens that prefer insta-communications via text, grandparents that find listening to voicemail too complicated or cumbersome, or multi-tasking people on-the-go that want their communications fast and simple without slowing down their day (that’s what the seven patty Whopper burger is for!).
And best of all, this isn’t a one-time gift that gets stowed in the closet as soon as the holidays are over (right, Ralphie?!). This is the gift that keeps on giving throughout the year! And if you’re like me, whenever I find a fabulous and affordable gift for a friend I always buy one for myself as well! So, while you’re at it why not sign-up yourself for SpinVox too!
* Check with your carrier on SpinVox voice-to-text plans available.
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http://blog.spinvox.com/2009/12/04/ho-ho-holidays-are-coming-give-the-gift-of-spinvox/
We’ve all been there. Placed a call into a customer service number and put on hold for what seems an eternity and then transferred from agent to agent re-explaining the issue umpteen times only to be dropped during the last transfer. Frustration begins and we start the cycle again – or like many people we just give up.
Rather than sitting on hold or explaining the reason for the call many times over – wouldn’t it be great if you could just leave a message with all the pertinent information and an agent returns your call within the hour, has all the information needed for your account and best of all you only talk to one person – because THIS IS the person who can actually help you!
This isn’t Fantasy Island my friends. This is a reality!
Companies with customer contact centers – such as the energy company, Centrica – have integrated SpinVox voice-to-text into their call platforms. Now, when customer service agents are on another call the caller has the option to leave a voice message that will then be converted to text, assessed, prioritized and then routed to the appropriate agent’s email InBox for action. And because of SpinVox voice-to-text conversion that agent has the written history of your calls into the contact center available to pull up with your account and make the discussion with you a much more efficient and productive conversation.
Benefits to the bottom line are clear. Customers were thrilled to find resolution to their call in significantly less time – and call center agents work more efficiently so more customer calls can be handled and resolved than ever before!
And with today’s economy, keeping customers satisfied is priority one as a happy customer is a retained customer!
Have a customer service horror story to share? Drop us a comment!
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http://blog.spinvox.com/2009/12/03/contact-centers-and-voice-to-text-happy-customers/
One of the earliest developers to register for the SpinVox API was nFinity, best known for their QuickVoice voice recorder product. Kerrie-Lynn Corcoran talks about nFinity, QuickVoice and the company’s success on the iPhone platform.
Q. Tell us a little about nFinity and your suite of award-winning products – know they are very popular in the Apple App Store!
nFinity is a software company based in Rhode Island. We have software products on three platforms: Mac, Windows and the iPhone. We even dabble a little with the Android phone. Apple iPhone users love our voice recorder that is sold in the App Store. It’s pretty amazing to walk into an Apple store and see our product’s icon on the wall or to open the New York Times and see our icon in an Apple full-page color ad sitting in the midst of other well-known organizations such as: Facebook; Pandora; Yahoo; Google and Ebay. We even had to take a second look!
Q. It’s been great reading so many rave reviews for your QuickVoice recorder. How did the idea for QuickVoice come about?
Necessity is the mother of invention. Our products were thought up by a brilliant man, my father! He has a history of developing products that he needs. He’s been a designer/engineer/product developer all his life. His career background was mainly in hardware products. He’s designed everything from medical devices to Cross pens … QuickVoice was his first software product. He thought up QuickVoice while he was a student pursuing his Masters degree in Theology, of all things! It was a product he wanted to use to record his classes and be able to reference back to them later on.
Q. How did you hear about the SpinVox API program?
Research! We wanted to add voice-to-text capability and saw a tremendous need especially on a person’s mobile phone. We wanted to give our customers that added convenience and practicality and SpinVox looked like it would fit the bill.
Q. How long did it take you to build the iPhone app with the API?
Less than one month!
Q. nFinity’s apps are available all over the world. How many countries are your products available in and/or languages do you currently support? And, will you use the API to expand beyond English language voice-to text support?
The fact that it’s a voice recorder means that there is endless opportunity with virtually any language you can speak. The beauty is that it “speaks” anyone’s language. We can hardly think of a country in which we haven’t sold over a hundred copies. Eastern & Western Europe, Asia, China, New Zealand, Australia… the only one we aren’t sure of is Antarctica. Well, not that we know of!
We would love to expand the voice-to-text languages supported. We have already done initial testing. We have had a lot of requests from customers all over the world that want to be able to translate their language to text.
Q. Where do you see nFinity in the next 12 months?
12 months in the software world is an eternity. Just over a year ago we were getting on the iPhone platform. We are constantly looking for opportunities and are a flexible company. We have a lot of things in the works. We are hoping to add voice reminders and we get lots of voice-to-text texting requests. We would love to make that happen. The sky is the limit for nFinity, Inc. We are just enjoying the ride!
And, we love working with SpinVox…and our customers a very pleased with the voice-to-text conversions as well – they’ve told us their SpinVox converted messages are “scarily accurate”, “amazing”, and “mind-blowing”! We think they are an awesome company.
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http://blog.spinvox.com/2009/11/23/a-conversation-with-kerrie-lynn-corcoran-of-nfinity-inc/
The applications for voice-to-text conversion are innumerable. Aside from the convenience and productivity enhancements it provides day-to-day communication – it is also making its way into the legal community as a valuable tool for e-discovery.
What is e-discovery you ask? E- (or electronic) discovery, is any process in which electronic data is sought, located, secured and searched with the intent of using it as evidence in a civil or criminal legal case. E-discovery can be carried out offline on a particular computer or it can be done in a network.
For example, where legal teams used to have to wade through and transcribe voicemail audio files there is now the growing convenience of clients who have voicemail-to-text or voicemail-to-email messages with the audio message already transcribed and filed. As you can imagine this saves not only time for the legal team but also saves lots of money in reducing the man hours needed for e-discovery efforts.
Of course, lawyers don’t just use voice-to-text applications for e-discovery initiatives they also use them for day-to-day business productivity. With voicemail-to-text services such as SpinVox with Mutare Software’s Enabled Voicemail (EVM) lawyers can visually scan through, prioritize and respond to messages from their mobile phone when listening to a voice message would be difficult or inappropriate, such as noisy airports, meetings and courtrooms. Voice-to-text also turns idle downtime into billable time, because it includes one-click return phone calling in the body of each message and the converted voice-to-text messages with Caller ID makes appending to client files and future search/retrieval as easy as email.
Want to try it for yourself? To receive a real-time SpinVox voice-to-text message conversion, call 1-980-939-8785 from your mobile device, leave a message and press #. To experience how a message is delivered to your email inbox, visit: http://www.mutare.com/stttestdrive/.
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http://blog.spinvox.com/2009/11/19/lawyers-make-the-case-for-voice-to-text/
You were recently invited to keynote for the AVIOS Israel Chapter’s annual conference. First, what is AVIOS and how did you become involved with the organization?
AVIOS (Applied Voice Input/Output Society) is a speech technology association founded in 1981 and with a membership consisting mainly of speech experts. I started in speech technology in 1984 and many of the others have been around for some time too. As it’s a small community, everyone pretty much knows everyone else.
With all the incredible technological innovations happening in the region, there must have been a great collection of speakers and attendee companies at the AVIOS Israel event. What are some of the key takeaways you brought with you from the show? Or some of the interesting side conversations that came up?
From the presentations that were in English (rather than Hebrew) and a few side discussions, three things stood out:
1. Speech technology tends to be concentrated in certain areas – Silicon Valley, Boston, Cambridge UK, etc., and it’s clear from the caliber of the audience that Israel is one of those places.
2. Speaker verification (voice biometrics that confirm a speaker’s identity) is drawing increasing interest and investment.
3. There is a resurgence of new R&D for voice message to text conversion. This is the most difficult problem in speech, but it is crossing the threshold from impossible to possible. (At the same time, success at SpinVox is proving that there is a market hungry for the technology.) We see a corresponding uptick in research in this area, including some new efforts in Israel.
Congratulations on presenting as the event’s keynote speaker this year! Tell us about your “Crossing Speech Technology Thresholds” presentation and why you chose that theme to share with this audience. And, what was the reaction to ‘Pedro the Voder’?
Pedro the Voder was the first electronic talking machine, demonstrated at the 1939 World’s Fair. I showed a bit on how it worked and played an old recording. The AVIOS audience was entertained, I think, but also realized how far we’ve come in 70 years. I mentioned the first network-based speech recognizer that understood only three words (1989) and analyzed progress in the 20 years since then.
The presentation showed that the market is eager to adopt speech technology as it becomes ready, but that just having an impressive prototype or even a successful trial does not qualify a service as “ready.”
I also related a few interesting events from the days when speech technology was still new which have never been reported or published. There have been some astounding breakthroughs over the past 25 years and each breakthrough has enabled a new set of applications. The latest breakthrough – converting recorded voice messages on any topic from any speaker into text – is triggering a new wave of services in voicemail-to-text, voice-to-SMS, apps for handheld devices, and call center automation.
Your talk included some predictions. What do you see happening in the next few years?
We can extrapolate from the past and look at the breakthroughs people are working on now to get a reasonable idea where things are headed. We see data becoming available everywhere and information becoming decentralized. Combined with our new ability to convert speech into text, we have now fully bridged the gap between data and voice, and we will see more of this available on handheld devices. Whereas standard voicemail has been on the decline, we see voicemail-to-text driving a dramatic upturn. We should also expect applications powered by voice-to-text to proliferate, including speech-to-SMS, blogging by voice, and voice powered web search, followed in a few years by language translation, intelligent concierge services, and automated systems that are as easy to talk to as live agents.
Sounds like an interesting presentation, how could I get a copy and learn more?
The paper is available here
And, the presentation is available here
What’s next for you and/or AVIOS?
On January 9th, I’m speaking at the Consumer Electronics Show, a massive conference in Las Vegas. My topic is “The New User Interface: Who Needs Buttons and Dials?” The next AVIOS event is the main annual conference, recently renamed to “Mobile Voice,” in San Francisco April 22-23.
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http://blog.spinvox.com/2009/11/06/avios-israel-a-david-thomson-qa/
thanks @PRFabulous , @whatleydude, @delvy and twitter: @spinvox customer services have sent the info i couldnt find anywhere else - cheers
http://twitter.com/ekul/statuses/5450586585
RT @SpinVox: Big Talk: ‘Tis The Season for Voicemail to Text in Canada http://tinyurl.com/yksk5ll
http://twitter.com/RachaelLyon/statuses/5424266718
Just in time for the impending hectic holiday season, staying connected in Canada just became a bit easier for Bell Mobility customers. Starting today, Bell Mobility subscribers now have a multitude of plan and pricing options to start taking advantage of Voicemail to Text powered by SpinVox. Bell’s Voicemail to Text service – that converts voice messages to text and delivers them as SMS to the subscriber’s mobile phone – is now included standard as part of the Fun 25, Smart 40 and Smart Combo 100 mobile plans or as unlimited a-la-carte service for just CAN$5/month!
Especially useful as holiday shopping starts to get underway- arms full of packages and the shopping center is piping loud holiday music and listening to voicemail just isn’t feasible. Now while taking a much needed coffee break from shopping or whirling through the grocery store picking up last minute items, Bell Voicemail to Text enables users to read their voicemails as text and text reply back immediately. No more phone calls in the store, yelling to be heard over the crowd and letting everyone know you promise to not forget the Twinkies. With Voicemail to Text you can stay connected to friends, family, and children without slowing down your day to find a quiet place to listen to voicemail or find a mobile signal in the store to make a return call (as text messaging requires much less spectrum to work…one bar connectivity will usually do it!)
Are you in Canada – but not a Bell Mobility customer? You’re in luck! SpinVox-powered voicemail-to-text mobile services are available across more than 95% of Canada in both a-la-carte and mobile rate plans from all ‘Big 3’ Canadian carriers – Bell, Rogers and TELUS.
Already using Voicemail to Text (or Visible Voicemail) in Canada? Drop us a comment on your favorite voice-to-text message experience or tell us the craziest place you’ve received your voice messages as text.
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http://blog.spinvox.com/2009/11/04/%e2%80%98tis-the-season-for-voicemail-to-text-in-canada/
The scenario is familiar in many households today. Dinner is ready and the kids need to come to the table. It used to be that a good yell upstairs would have the kids running to the meal. Nowadays to communicate even within the house requires an SMS update – honestly, how many of you with kids have watched with amazement as they text each other from across the room?!
And to put some numbers against this, a 2008 study commissioned by AT&T found 73% of parents reported texting was the most effective means of communication with their children. And no wonder, as a June 2009 Neilsen Company report found the average US teen sent nearly 3,000 text messages a month in Q1 2009, a rise from less than 500 per month in Q1 2007.
So clearly younger folks increasingly prefer text – it forms an integral part of their lives. And while the number of people over the age of 40 are texting more regularly, a vast majority of the adult mobile user population just don’t text to the same extent. Studies show that the majority of those adults that do text primarily text with their kids – albeit many parents report it would be much faster to just have a phone conversation because the time it takes to text turns a 2-minute conversation to 20 minutes of back-and-forth typing of 160 character messages.
Communications preferences aside, today we have to also take into consideration the long-term effects of texting. HealthDay News recently reported on findings that texting can lead to painful repetitive stress injuries, ‘cell phone elbow’ also known as cubital tunnel syndrome, tendinitis of the wrist and arthritis in the thumb joint, to name a few. Now texting goes from cumbersome to potentially a health claims issue…where’s the fun in that?!
So all things considered – how to bridge the generation gap with kids that only want to communicate via text? And how can we (and our kids) start veering off the path of thumb texting to avoid or minimize longer term effects of repetitive hand movement?
Fortunately we are at the right time and right place for an option – speak-a-text. One click of a button and a text can be spoken to any mobile phone user with SMS anywhere in the world. And really isn’t it easier to just say what you mean than have to type it out letter by letter on a tiny mobile phone keypad? Definitely!
Anyone interested in giving speak-a-text a try can call (980) 939-8785 in the U.S. to speak-a-text to the mobile phone user of your choice. If you are in the UK you can do the same on 0161 369 5672. Your thumbs will thank you later – and your kids might finally think you’re cool…!
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http://blog.spinvox.com/2009/11/02/bridging-sms-generation-gaps/
Bells Are Ringing – New SpinVox A-La-Carte Service in Canada
Quiz time! What will CAN$5 buy you? Hmm, let’s see. Well, it will get you about five songs on iTunes, one venti mochachino at Starbucks and about two-and-a- half movie rentals from Blockbuster. Or, for CAN$5/month Bell Mobility customers can start enjoying the benefits of reading their voice messages as text and say ‘goodbye!’ to the archaic thing known as voicemail.
That means no more scrambling for pens or paper to scribble down messages for a start. And given we are a texting society there is now the huge convenience of being able to reply to voice messages via text. Now, that’s great for parents with kids who say they couldn’t hear or return their call from the mall/party because it was too noisy…messages are received, and can be returned, as text! Parents win…and, well, kids….they get to text Mom and Dad back.
So to recap, Bell Mobility customers can now subscribe to Bell Voicemail to Text powered by SpinVox and get unlimited voice-to-text messages for CAN$5/month. Pretty cool, eh?
Asking yourself ‘how do I sign up’? Just ring up Bell Mobility and ask for the new Voicemail to Text service. And you can watch a demo of the new service here.
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http://blog.spinvox.com/2009/10/29/bell-mobility-%e2%80%93-a-la-carte-launch/
Attention online shoppers! Today Broadsoft opened up a new eCommerce-enabled marketplace that makes it super simple for visitors to directly browse and purchase communications applications and services - such as SpinVox Voicemail-to-Text.
As part of the mission of the new Xtended Marketplace, Broadsoft will focus efforts on making available applications and services that ‘deliver value, solve real-life challenges and meet the lifestyle of users by providing a more integrated communications experience for businesses and consumers’.
SpinVox Voicemail-to-Text is one of three featured services/applications available in this respect. The new Xtended Marketplace is currently in beta phase with a full launch scheduled for Q1 2010,
In the (paraphrased) words of Broadsoft, “The launch of the BroadSoft Marketplace is a significant milestone in the IP communications industry… service providers can immediately capitalize on and monetize the creative innovation of this developer community, while delivering value-added communications applications to their subscribers.”
If you happen to be in Scottsdale on 25-28th October or are already attending the Broadsoft Connections Conference stop by the ‘Show Me The Apps’ session where Broadsoft will demo the online purchasing and provisioning of the new marketplace. And you can read more about it here.
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http://blog.spinvox.com/2009/10/27/show-me-the-apps-spinvox-voicemail-to-text-service-featured-in-broadsoft%e2%80%99s-new-xtended-marketplace/
The dreaded red message light at work. You’re on a marathon conference call at your desk and your heart sinks as you watch call after call roll over to voicemail and the glaring red message light starts shouting for your attention. You know that when you finally wrap the call and prepare to dive into all the action items you’ve just acquired there are still a pile of messages to wade through, write down, call back or forward to a colleague.
Now imagine this. The same marathon conference call, but now every message received is automatically converted to text and sent to your email InBox. Almost immediately you know who was calling and why – and all of the contact information is already in email – no pens or paper to find and keep up with – just copy and paste to Contacts folder as needed. And you can follow-up the messages by email, text or even IM while still on the call.
So that’s what happens when voice to text powers Unified Communications on your desktop. Imagine what happens when it’s applied to call centre environments. You call a contact centre and the agents are busy. You leave a message and receive a call back quickly from the right contact for your inquiry who is already briefed on your issue as your message has been converted to text it’s able to be readily assessed, prioritized and sent to them in a form they can quickly consume– speeding time to resolution and reducing the time you have to hold on the phone while being transferred from contact to contact explaining the reason for your inquiry each time.
Seems like a no-brainer idea, right? We thought so too. That’s why SpinVox started working with some of the best Unified Communications platform providers in the world, such as Avaya, and have deployed in contact centres for some of the best known brands - such as Boots.
Stay tuned to this blog for future updates to SpinVox happenings in UC and upcoming events where you can meet with us in person and learn more. Or, for more information now contact us.
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http://blog.spinvox.com/2009/10/23/eliminate-red-light-dread/
Perhaps one of the most mobile groups of professionals working today is in the real estate industry. They’re always in the field, rarely in the office and always need to be connected to clients, other agents, mortgage lending firms, surveyors, lawyers and more. And with home sales in the U.S. on a steady rise, according to the National Association of Realtors in an August announcement, and housing prices set to rise among limited housing supply in Australia, and signs of steady recovery in the UK, the pace for real estate agents around the world is looking to get even busier and more competitive.
The customer service that results from multi-tasking and keeping track of discussions, decisions and follow-up action items is essential to a real estate agent’s success. Fortunately voice-to-text services available today are helping many real estate agents work more efficiently, increase productivity and improve client communications.
For example, real estate agents on a service such as SpinVox can use their mobile phone to speak themselves a voice-to- email message that captures in near real-time the synopsis of a conversation, delivery request or decision whereas before it may have taken hours before an agent could write up notes for their files. Now the information is waiting for them in their email InBox and includes day/time stamp of when notes were made.
Or let’s say the agent just put in a bid for a house and is heading into a meeting where it would be inappropriate to take a call or dial into a voicemail – with voicemail-to-text the agent can now read the voice message content during the meeting and know immediately what, if any, action may be needed or can forward to an assistant for immediate follow-up.
A great tool for communications with clients, voice-to-text services can also be used to speak a text message to a client or colleague recapping a conversation or confirming next steps for a home sale. And when the client leaves a voice message they know it will be received by the agent in text format – so the agent is always available to the client. Having been involved in the home buying and selling process a few times, as a client that kind of follow-up and availability really lets me know the agent is thinking about me and driving the home buying/selling process forward. And as stressful as home buying and selling can be – anything that puts the client’s mind at ease is improving the customer experience and proving the value of the agent!
And if all these benefits weren’t enough - with all the notes and messages captured in text format they are easily organized, archived and shared with colleagues or clients as needed – reducing the number of papers and documents that must be kept up with throughout the day!
Have you experienced voice-to-text in your day-to-day life be it for business or personal use or are you using it to improve customer service in your business? We would love to hear from you on your experience — please drop us a comment…!
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http://blog.spinvox.com/2009/10/08/real-estate-voice-to-text-sold/
In today’s blog we talk with Mark Smith CEO of ipadio.
ipadio allows you to broadcast from any phone to the Internet live. Phone blog, collect audio data, record and update the world, or simply let your mates know what you’re doing.
ipadio is integrated with a variety of Social Media & Blogging platforms and has used the SpinVox API to ensure callers also have the option to use SpinVox voice to text conversion to produce title, tags and a transcript for their phone blogs or `phlogs` as they are known. See the results of our conversation below!
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http://blog.spinvox.com/2009/10/05/a-conversation-with-mark-smith-of-ipadio/
Big Talk: Can You Hear Me Now? You Bet, I Just Got your Text! http://tinyurl.com/m3yjhy
http://twitter.com/SpinVox/statuses/4175506003
A study by the US federal government indicates that as many as four Americans in every 1,000 are functionally deaf, while adding in those who have any kind of hearing trouble pushes the number to more than 100 people per 1,000 affected. In the UK the Royal National Institute for the Deaf (RNID) puts the number of deaf and hard of hearing people in the country at nearly 9 million – or about 15% of the population. That’s possibly no surprise for anyone who has ridden on a New York City subway or London tube and experienced the gratuitous MP3 player concert blasting out of the ears of a nearby passenger. There has to be concern that the numbers of people with hearing problems are only going to rise with the increased use of ear buds for everything from music, movies, podcasts and voice calls.
Clearly the hearing-impaired have more trouble using the phone services that the rest of us take for granted in our daily lives . So what to do? Voice-to-text services can really help. A Birmingham Institute of the Deaf report found that 98% of the hearing impaired population in the UK uses mobile SMS messaging to communicate (and to report crimes –more and more police departments in the UK and US have been adopting this practice!). And while some carriers offer SMS-only plans tailored to hearing-impaired needs, some carriers still require both voice and SMS plans to be subscribed to - with many hearing impaired subscribers then paying for a feature they have no use for. But the reality for any subscriber is that SMS-only plans are limiting – especially for day-to-day work needs or when meeting new people one might like to keep in touch with.
For the hearing impaired in particular, adding a voicemail-to-text feature on mobile carrier plans can open up the circle of friends, acquaintances, business colleagues, doctors, you name it that previously would have been limited to SMS or email only communications. And for many older people the idea of typing an SMS is not the most user-friendly experience for communicating.
When I first joined SpinVox my grandma, at age 80 one of those `older people`, was so excited. Committed to retaining her independence it was frustrating to her that she couldn’t hear voicemail messages (even using her hearing aids – her ‘ears’ as she calls them). So she would try and listen to the messages 5-10 times before giving me a call and having me listen to them over the phone to let her know if that message from the bank was urgent or just a courtesy call. Now, with voicemail-to-text she can retain not only her independence, but also have a saved text message with all the contact or detail information she needs – no more scrambling for pen and paper to write it all down or the need to locate the scrap of paper or back of an envelope where a message was written previously (which we all know inadvertently gets thrown out…doh!).
Today in the US, voicemail-to-text services are available from Skype, Google Voice, Vonage and some regional carriers (surprising when compared to Canada where voicemail-to-text is available to more than 95% of the country!). Imagine how useful and cost effective voicemail-to-text would be if it was a standard feature in all major carrier mobile plans be it UK, US, Australia, etc? Given all the baby boomers in retirement age and the ever-increasing number of hearing-impaired individuals this is a service we can all benefit from.
If you’d like voicemail-to-text your carrier doesn’t offer it – ask for it! With escalating competition in the mobile market and carriers looking for new ways to retain loyal customers there has never been a better time to ‘ask and you shall receive’ from your mobile operator!
If you’d like more information on voicemail-to-text for the hearing impaired please drop us a line.
RachelL
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http://blog.spinvox.com/2009/09/22/can-you-hear-me-now-you-bet-i-just-got-your-text/
Firm agrees Ivorian waste payouts:
Related posts:UK firm Spinvox ‘put up for sale’StrawJet Transf.. http://tinyurl.com/lcgh4p
http://twitter.com/TNDaily01/statuses/4159940876
@t3styler That is pretty lame, i'm with spinvox so i don't really need the t-mobile voicemail.
http://twitter.com/adonisdemon/statuses/4111154326
Discovering ways to use Evernote. Archiving voicemail messages with SpinVox is really cool.
http://twitter.com/mic_ah/statuses/4107206309
@solobasssteve plug the simultaneous translation into #Spinvox and auto-tweet it? #PBCN09
http://twitter.com/moof/statuses/4101446207
@TheSneakyPete Ping.fm - there's an obscure link at the bottom which links you to the Spinvox set-up
http://twitter.com/gatiep/statuses/4080732478
RT @carlmartin: RT @MIReview: Nokia, RIM & Ericsson tipped as SpinVox bidders: http://ping.fm/heI0i
http://twitter.com/jamescameron/statuses/4074515123
@wadds spinvox!
http://twitter.com/jwatton/statuses/4074097490
After £100m and then crash and burn, will Nuance buy SpinVox? Speculation by FT: http://bit.ly/guPIu
http://twitter.com/gsterling/statuses/4050639964
@russelldavies Edit your spinvox prefs so it also sends you an email. Kinda like a searchable archive of voicemails, too.
http://twitter.com/tomskitomski/statuses/4030639814
RT @dsugden #ipadio: [http://post.ly/5Dmj] Great to see iPadio working hand in hand with Spinvox to create transcript of ad hoc MP3 file.
http://twitter.com/dsugden/statuses/4006324206
Big Talk: SpeechTEK Musings with David Thomson http://tinyurl.com/m8vywh
http://twitter.com/SpinVox/statuses/4002562618
A few weeks ago we posted on the SpeechTEK 2009 event in New York City and all the SpinVox happenings - such as SpinVox co-founder Daniel Doulton’s SpeechTEK Luminary Award and David Thomson’s, SpinVox SVP of Speech Technology, participation on three panels at the event. Now in its 15th year, SpeechTEK is the world’s biggest conference and exhibition dedicated exclusively to speech technology that brings together the brightest minds and industry leaders to discuss and debate speech technology ideas, innovations, services and solutions we can all benefit from and use.
We wanted to check in with David post-SpeechTEK (he’s been attending the annual event since 1998!) and hear some of his thoughts on the ideas and trends coming out of this year’s event and what the near-and-long term implications for the speech technology industry may mean. David has 25 years experience in the speech technology and telecommunications world – many of those spent as CTO of Lucent Speech Solutions – so he knows a thing or two about speech tech and had some interesting insights to share.
A Q&A with David Thomson….
Q. How many years have you been attending SpeechTEK and what has changed?
I’ve attended every year but one since 1998. In the 90s, the big question was, “Will speech recognition really work?” Now everyone knows it works. The new question is, “What can I build with it and how much money will it make?”
Q. What is the SpeechTEK event best known for?
It’s the world’s largest speech technology show and a great place to contact customers and partners and to get the inside story on the latest in the industry. By the way, with so many of the brightest in the business there, Daniel Doulton’s selection as a Speech Luminary is that much more impressive.
Q. What panels did you present on at SpeechTEK this year?
In one presentation, I described how live agents back up speech technology to provide high-quality, low-cost services. The discussion addressed head-on some of the issues popping up in the press recently and SpinVox is the first company to talk so openly about the process behind speech-to-text, so there was considerable curiosity. The session was well attended and there were a lot of questions. As chairman of the Advanced Dialogs Forum, I was invited to speak on efforts underway to define the next generation of conversational human-machine interfaces. We’re planning for the day when you talk to a computer much as you would to another person. I also moderated a session on speech technology in call centers, which required extraordinary skill in writing on a small notepad, “You have 3 minutes left.”
Q. What were some of the trends you noticed?
I’ve seen a long-term shift away from core speech R&D and towards new applications. I think this reflects a maturity in the field. Examples this year include,
1. Social networking (blogs, tweets, etc.) are viewed as promising sectors in the speech business.
2. More smart phones are starting to integrate speech with video, touch screens, and other handset features.
3. Recognition of unrestricted spoken input, once viewed as technologically impossible except on Star Trek, is making its way into web search, language translation, and voice message conversion such as we do at SpinVox.
Q. What was the most interesting thing you learned?
My favorite presentation was from Columbia University on research into detecting emotion (anger, excitement, etc.) from a voice signal. The automated classifiers actually beat human accuracy in some cases. The man vs. machine challenge is always interesting.
Q. Where do you see speech technology going in the next 12 months?
I expect a gradual shift away from menu-based IVR towards machines that ask, “How may I help you?” and carry on conversation-style dialogs. In the past, these systems have been terrifically expensive to build, but new tools are bringing the cost down. At the same time, speech recognition is rising to the challenge of better understanding unrestricted speech, so look for more natural language applications.
Q. What got you into speech technology and what keeps you here?
In 1973, my Jr. High band teacher played a record of Bach music performed on a Moog synthesizer. I was instantly hooked. My interest in electronic music led to speech processing - the equations are similar. Speech is a fascinating mix of mathematics, algorithms, and psychology, and the prospect of giving human-like abilities to a computer adds to the adventure. I get most excited about being part of something no one has ever done before.
Q. Why did you join SpinVox?
I joined SpinVox because the speech-to-text business is growing faster and I see more technology innovation than in any other area of speech. It’s also a chance for redemption. For 25 years I’ve been guilty of foisting complex services on people that forced them to talk to a machine. We thought the services were cool, but from a user perspective, some of them were about as popular as tax audits. Now I’m working on a service everybody wants because it lets them avoid talking to machines.
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http://blog.spinvox.com/2009/09/15/speechtek-musings-with-david-thomson/
"I love the web utilities it's free but SpinVox I'm not so sure about it. It's a lot of fun to play with but they were very confusing st ...
http://twitter.com/denisejhill/statuses/3995293429
RT @MIReview: SpinVox investor: company has been 'put up for sale': http://ping.fm/bIcuI
http://twitter.com/infomobster/statuses/3979866824
Investor writes Spinvox down by 90%, says it’s for sale: It’s ironic that on a day when voice-to-text tran.. http://bit.ly/1f1Vc3
http://twitter.com/eOfficeLondon/statuses/3942805206
Reading "SpinVox up for sale" http://bit.ly/3H2kBF
http://twitter.com/symbiancoder/statuses/3933304648
SpinVox and Simulscribe both transcribe speech, but seemingly are very different companies: http://bit.ly/mIlli
http://twitter.com/voxilate/statuses/3917497612
Spinvox tried the old #cockpopcorn trick on us during their pitch. We almost touched it. #chuffcamp
http://twitter.com/techchuff/statuses/3884405445
Google Voice - free voice to txt/email (+ other fuctions - US only) doesn't this make the SpinVox model redundant? http://bit.ly/rp2XU
http://twitter.com/jstockwood/statuses/3866310336
Spinvox aftershock, Last minute comment opps available 4 this voice recog story http://bit.ly/47bDjv http://bit.ly/Spinvoxaftershock
http://twitter.com/nowcomms/statuses/3862556912
Just seen that SpinVox are doing a free UK promotion until the end of the year. Clearly saying about QC agents too http://tinyurl.com/nbbwga
http://twitter.com/ralvin/statuses/3843443595
Voicemail service for free AND to your mobile - https://www.spinvox.com/freeukpromo.html
http://twitter.com/ADVANCEZ/statuses/3840299582
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