It’s Pope-Mania here in New York today, and, soon, Passover time (Chag Pessach Samaiach V’ Kasher!). Anyway, religion aside, let’s talk about directory assistance - it doesn’t get much more agnostic than that. So, once again, it’s time to test out some speech products. This time, we’re aiming our sights on V-ENABLE. And since I’m sadistic, or just a responsible editor, I’m making Ryan test it out with me. We’ll be test-driving V-ENABLE over the weekend. It’s a directory assistance company that also offers access to live operators if needed. That’s great, because when you live in the city and are on a crowded street, GOOG-411 usually catches the woman next to me yelling at her child, not me saying “BARNES AND NOBLE.”

We’ll report back to you next week with our results. We here at Speech Tech are some tough critics - we only give out two ratings: fail, or succeed. So, with that in mind, let’s V-ENABLE knocks our socks off. I can tell Ryan is already annoyed by this assignment: “Does this mean I have to listen to ADS?” I hope not, Ryan.

[Image: Uath.org]

I wish there were two of me. No, seriously — except not in that creepy way portrayed in the venerable film Mulitiplicity. Because, seriously, there is way too much news on which to report for this issue of Round Up & Release. So sit back and relax, unless you live in California, because, according to scientists, you will be hit with a catastrophic earthquake within the next 30 years. No! Google! Apple! I’m already sad.
(more…)

Crush: Developers Answering the Call from iPhone
Why We’re Loving It: We hope that of the 100,000 developers who downloaded the iPhone’s SDK will do something speech-related for the product. Though Google’s Android has been met with interest from companies like Nuance Communications, the iPhone’s fate with speech apps remains unclear. We didn’t get any TTS or STT last time, but maybe a group of speech-happy developers will change all that in coming years. Of course, the overwhelming response to the SDK release (those 100,000 downloads took place within just four days of the release) also brought up fears that some of the downloads came from hackers. For more on that, check out this article from eFluxMedia.

Hex: Directory Assistance - Paid, Ad-Based, or Free - You’ve Gotta Step It Up!
Why We’re Hating: After a conversation with a vendor about directory assistance, I was thinking a lot about how often I have been frustrated beyond belief with DA speech recognition errors. Though I prefer free services (I’m 23. I’m poor.), the inefficient, broad search capabilities irritate me beyond belief. But the real problem? Poor speech recognition, and an insane amount of sensitivity to background noise. When do people typically call DA? When they’re outside. Outside conditions in New York are not what you’d call “serene,” to say the least. In addition, people in bigger cities like NYC or LA seem more likely to tap DA: we have more streets, more stores, and five freaking boroughs. As far as ad-based search goes, I haven’t found that quality improves, even with developers’ increased spending capabilities from the ad support ($$$$$). Paid services? No way. It just reminds me of my grandmother dialing information and being connected on a switchboard operated by Lily Tomlin. Developers: people love DA; people need DA; people want DA. Don’t ruin a good thing.