Good morning! This post is coming to you super-early, because I have way too much to do later today. So, before my boss creeps in, here’s all the news for the week so far. Our faithful, intrepid managing editor Len hath returned from the Genesys G-Force conference (read his posts about G-Force here), and he’ll have more to report to you in coming days. Such as what he did with the Genesys-emblazoned belt buckle … and how the rest of the office kind of wants it to add to our wall of “free stuff vendors send us.” So, unless you’re totally intrigued by how Xerox (haha, remember photocopies?) plans to compete with Google and Salesforce, or that giant squid is still freaking you out (hello, it has the world’s largest eyes), follow the jump for less-disgusting news stories! [Speech Tech Blog, Information Week, Associated Press]
* The Boston Subway system (locals call the train lines the “T”) is getting a big makeover, including text-to-speech capabilities. I’m impressed by the NYC Transit’s new, less maniacal personas, and I hope Boston’s new trains can say the same. But really, ladies and gentlemen of the speech tech world, can we please get a dialog going as to the inherent gender norms used in TTS for NYC Transit? The woman, who sounds like a too-happy PTA mom, announces all the stops, but this guy with an old-timey train conductor’s booming voice always gives out the stern commands: “Stand clear of the closing doors, please!” Maybe I’ll post about it later. [Rotor]
* Speaking of TTS, Loquendo announced its software is available for Mac OS X application developers. Didn’t Apple just file patents for speech synthesis? Loquendo versus Apple: who will win in the sport of bloodlust that is TTS? [TMC]
* CallMiner released a new version of its Eureka! speech analytics software. The company focused primarily on makings its solution more scalable, and plans to target larger companies. Watch out! [destinationCRM]
* Lawmakers in Florida dealt with a crappy, too-long meeting of bill-reading by getting a speech application to do the legwork. Rather than have more staff members read through the bill (the meeting lasted 16 HOURS), the program read it aloud in half the time. Of course, this being the South, there were other shenanigans that sound more interesting to me: “Majority Leader Adam Hasner’s BlackBerry, the wireless e-mail device, was briefly stolen, with a ransom note left by Democrats demanding action on some bills.” [Orlando Sentinel]
* And, according to reliable sources, Microsoft isn’t done with Yahoo! just yet (big shocker). [Wired]
[Image courtesy Cryptmundo.com]
