As CNN tells us, the outlook for Cyber Monday is for big deals and record sales. Sales for the one-day shopping event are projected to hit a record $1.2 billion this year. Cyber Monday was started by Shop.org, the online face of the National Retail Federation. Cyber Monday is always held on the Monday after the Thanksgiving weekend. Almost every major retailer plans on taking advantage of the hottest day to shop online. That includes Nuance, the best-known company in voice technology.
As our faithful readers may have noticed, SMM is now giving some visibility to the fine software and service suppliers that we have used over the years. Dragon Naturally Speaking is one of these, which does an excellent job of converting spoken phrases, even with a Brit accent, into relatively error-free text. You’ll find mention of this software in the left side-bar. This software is produced by Nuance, which is the best known and most advanced supplier of voice technology. For example it is involved in Siri, the winning application that is provided with the Apple iPhone 4S. Nuance is offering some real deals for Black Friday November 25 that we thought you might want to grab. Just click on the link that takes your fancy.
Dave Mock of the Motley Fool suggests that Nuance Bucks the Trend.
Nuance Communications (Nasdaq: NUAN) doesn’t top any lists as a recession-resistant stock, but the company is at least showing some solid strength in a tough economic climate.
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The company says its flagship
Dragon NaturallySpeakinghas gotten an enthusiastic welcome since its release. And the mobile sector continues to be strong, as device makers such as Nokia (NYSE: NOK), Motorola (NYSE: MOT), and Research In Motion (Nasdaq: RIMM) make speech-based interaction a standard feature in new devices.
What had got everyone’s interest was the news that Nuance Buys Philips’ Speech Recognition Unit For $96 Million.
The Philips unit, officially called Philips Speech Recognition Systems (PSRS), is based in Vienna, Austria, and provides a wide variety of speech-recognition solutions in 25 languages to meet medical documentation requirements for hospitals, physician practices, and other health care organizations.
Nuance noted that speech recognition is becoming ubiquitous in European health care markets. Adding that it plans to integrate PSRS’s solutions with many of its existing speech-recognition products, including its Dragon Medical SDK, Nuance said that it plans to fully support all PSRS customers and partners in the future.
Such good results may well be a confirmation of the strength of speech technology, given the growth in the mobile web. Undoubtedly the activities of Google with Android can only help to stir up interest.
There are some major moves in the voice recognition software marketplace. IBM Research has announced that it is unleashing powerful speech software that will make speech technologies part of everyday life.
As part of an effort to bring IBM Research’s vaunted intellectual capital directly into the marketplace, the opening of IBM Research’s speech assets will make it easier for IBM customers and partners to gain a competitive advantage in new markets by integrating the industry’s most advanced speech recognition software.
Then Dragon NaturallySpeaking has now launched version 10 with appreciable improvements in speed and accuracy. As one reviewer put it,
Never mind the PC’s keyboard, here’s Dragon NaturallySpeaking
Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10, the new voice recognition program from Nuance Communications Inc., is fast enough and accurate enough to render my keyboard obsolete. According to Nuance, NaturallySpeaking 10 is about 20 percent more accurate than its predecessor. Better still, it’s about 50 percent faster, so there’s very little delay between the sound of my voice and the appearance of text.
All the other biggies on the Internet scene, in particular Google and Microsoft, are all beavering away as well. The reason for this is that the Internet will be moving in large part to cell phones as the mobile web becomes the online space of choice.
If there is a paradox it is that this is not a hot item of discussion among consumers. You can check that out by using the new Google tool, Insights. A search for voice recognition software shows the following trend:
Voice Recognition Software Trend
In interpreting such a picture, there is a major caution to be made. Google normalizes these results against all the searches that are done. Here is how Google explains the normalization process.
Key Points Of Normalization:
*New York doesn’t appear on the list for the term ‘haircut.’ Does this mean that people in New York don’t search for this term at all?
Remember, Google Insights for Search shows the likelihood of users in a particular area to search for a term on Google on a relative basis. So, just because New York isn’t on the top regions list for haircut doesn’t necessarily mean that people there don’t search for that term at all. Consider the following scenarios. It could be that people in New York:
- don’t use Google to find a barber or hair salon
- use a different term for haircut-related searches
- search for so many other topics unrelated to haircuts, that searches for haircut comprise a small portion of the search volume from New York as compared to other regions
Since Googling for answers is now the preferred research method, even keywords that are growing modestly in popularity will show a downward trend. Unless Google reveals the total number of keyword searches that are done, one cannot determine whether consumers are more or less interested in voice recognition software. What is quite certain is that, although they may not presently show massive interest versus YouTube or Facebook, within 12 months that picture will be changing.
Related: Insights Into Google Search
Some talented management have been leaving Yahoo! this week. Yesterday it was learnt that Jeff Weiner, executive vice president of Yahoo’s Network division and leader of many of the company’s core products, is leaving the company. Yesterday also veteran developer Jeremy Zawodny, who helped spearhead important projects like the Yahoo Developer Network, announced on his blog that he would be leaving. Today according to the Washington Post, NYT Bits is reporting the departure of Usama Fayyad, chief data officer and EVP of research and strategic data solutions, which is expected to be officially announced later today.
The most intriguing news for those interested in speech technology was an announcement earlier in the week by Nuance Communications that two other ex-Yahoo’s were joining them. Gary Clayton joins Nuance from his role as vice president, Speech Strategy, at Yahoo! where he oversaw speech implementation for the Yahoo! platform and mobile products, including oneSearch with Voice. Prior to Yahoo!, he spent seven years at Tellme Networks, now part of Microsoft.
Victor Chen is also joining Nuance as senior director, Creative Strategy. Prior to joining Nuance, Mr. Chen served as the director of business management at Yahoo! where he was responsible for developing the company?s speech strategy and introducing oneSearch. Prior to Yahoo!, he was director of strategic initiatives with Tellme, guiding the strategy and design of mobile search applications. Mr. Chen will report to Gary Clayton.
Speech technology is playing an increasingly important role in the development of the mobile web and clearly Nuance is strengthening its position as one of the major players. Microsoft has also been acquiring talent to ensure its stake. Only Google has been somewhat quiet in recent months but by the end of 2008 that undoubtedly will change.
This blog is created by using the Dragon NaturallySpeaking software from Nuance. Just dictate away and typo-free text appears on the screen. It works very effectively and rarely makes a mistake. It really is very impressive. It is one of the reasons why I believe that speech technology is the killer app for the mobile web.
There are countless recent news items to support that belief. Perhaps one of the most dramatic is that banks in the UK will be using voice IDs. The main British banks plan to introduce voice recognition over the next year as a way of deterring card fraudsters, according to speech software specialist Nuance as reported in Personal Computer World.
Ian Turner, general manager for Nuance’s operations in northern Europe, said: “By the end of next year, about 20 million people in the UK will be registered with some kind of system.”
He said voice recognition can be 97 per cent accurate, but it is always used with some other form of identification, such as a password. He added that even good mimics cannot fool the system.
Nuance provides one of the major voice-biometric systems on the market. A recent survey commissioned by Nuance indicated that most people are in favour of multi-factor identification systems, including voice biometrics.
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