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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

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This entry was posted on Monday, August 25th, 2008 at 10:26 am and is filed under Google, Voice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.