speech

Eight features that a 5-star GPS navigator should have

There was a time when all that a GPS device needed to do was get you from point A to point B -- preferably alive and in one piece. Over time, we began to expect so much more. We wanted hands-free calling, syncing of contacts, large databases of local destinations, and traffic data. The bar for what counted as a good GPS device had to be raised.

That bar is still rising, faster yet and higher than ever now that GPS navigators must compete with smartphones and tablets. Simply getting from point A to point B isn't enough when … Read more

Twitter, hate speech, and the costs of keeping quiet

This is a guest column. See below for Greg Lukianoff's bio.

Last month was a bittersweet seventh birthday for Twitter. The Union of Jewish French Students sued the social-media giant for $50 million in a French court in light of anti-Semitic tweets that carried the hashtag #unbonjuif ("a good Jew"). In January, Twitter agreed to delete the tweets, but the student group now wants the identities of the users who sent the anti-Semitic messages so that they can be prosecuted under French law against hate speech. Twitter is resisting. It claims that as an American company protected … Read more

Apple looks to be amping up Siri with hiring binge

Siri could be getting a lot better at her job.

Apple posted 12 new Siri-focused jobs over the weekend, according to Fast Company. The open positions include software engineers, operations engineers, and interaction designer. This means that Apple's speech recognition personal assistant may be getting an overhaul.

The job description for Siri software engineers says, "The Siri team is looking for an exceptional engineer to help build out new areas of expertise for Siri, expanding the product's capabilities for millions of users," while the description for Siri interaction designer says, "The successful candidate will contribute … Read more

Windows Blue upgrades may be shown in leaked videos

Leaked videos that hit the Web today hint at a host of possibilities for Microsoft's next Windows release, codenamed Blue. Not only does it look like there might be improvements across the operating system, but also the speech recognition feature in Windows Phones could get a noteworthy upgrade.

The videos come via MSFTKitchen, which got its hands on internal videos from Microsoft's TechFest event a couple of weeks ago.

In the video that is presumably about Microsoft Blue, the company's chief technical strategy officer Eric Rudder hints that Microsoft has plans to boost their touch feature on … Read more

Stroke patient gets by with a little help from a bot

Turning to robots for speech and physical therapy may not be everyone's idea of high-quality, personalized health care. But for stroke patients -- particularly those in rural, isolated areas -- therapists can be difficult and expensive to come by, and rehabilitation can be elusive.

So a speech language pathologist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst is studying the interactions of stroke patients with the uBot-5, a child-size humanoid robot with arms and a computer screen through which therapists can interact with people. And for at least one stroke patient, the bot appears to be doing a stand-up job.… Read more

EU votes to reject 'porn ban' proposals

European citizens can breathe a sigh of relief after a vote in the European Parliament has rejected proposals to ban "all forms of pornography" -- including on the Web -- in the region.

Today, 625 members of the European Parliament voted 368-159 in favor of passing a report aimed at stamping out gender stereotypes in the region, with 98 abstaining. However, the controversial "porn ban" section of the proposal was rejected.

This vote forms a majority opinion based on Europe's voting politicians, from which the European Commission can form legislation. Such a law would again … Read more

Obama commends Apple, Intel for U.S. manufacturing jobs

One of President Obama's policy points in his State of the Union speech tonight was that U.S. companies need to create jobs here. Not only did he stress this need, he also praised those companies already in the process of doing this, including Intel and Apple.

"Our first priority is making America a magnet for new jobs and manufacturing. After shedding jobs for more than 10 years, our manufacturers have added about 500,000 jobs over the past three," Obama said in his speech. "Caterpillar is bringing jobs back from Japan. Ford is bringing jobs … Read more

White House debuts 'enhanced' streaming for SOTU speech

The White House is debuting a new way to watch President Obama's State of the Union speech tonight -- it has created an "online-only enhanced" live stream that lets viewers both watch in real time and see different policy charts, stats, and data.

Obama mentioned the live stream on his Twitter page:

Watch Obama's #SOTU address with enhanced graphics, charts, and useful stats on his plan to keep us moving forward: OFA.BO/eJ9Z7k

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) February 12, 2013

This "enhanced" live stream seems to be geared toward people who don't have … Read more

Crave giveaway: Nuance Dragon Dictate for Mac 3

Congrats to Craig L. of East Wenatchee, Wash., for winning a $200 gift certificate to geek shop KlearGear.com in last week's giveaway, and to Chuck V. of Eden Prairie, Minn., for scoring a bag of CES swag the week before that. Now, on to this week's business...

Are you a fan of speech recognition software? Put your hands up in the air. We're giving away a copy of the latest version of Nuance's Dragon Dictate for Mac.

Dragon Dictate for Mac 3 promises 15 percent better out-of-the box accuracy than its predecessor, as well as … Read more