A study by the US federal government indicates that as many as four Americans in every 1,000 are functionally deaf, while adding in those who have any kind of hearing trouble pushes the number to more than 100 people per 1,000 affected. In the UK the Royal National Institute for the Deaf (RNID) puts the number of deaf and hard of hearing people in the country at nearly 9 million – or about 15% of the population. That’s possibly no surprise for anyone who has ridden on a New York City subway or London tube and experienced the gratuitous MP3 player concert blasting out of the ears of a nearby passenger. There has to be concern that the numbers of people with hearing problems are only going to rise with the increased use of ear buds for everything from music, movies, podcasts and voice calls.

Clearly the hearing-impaired have more trouble using the phone services that the rest of us take for granted in our daily lives . So what to do? Voice-to-text services can really help. A Birmingham Institute of the Deaf report found that 98% of the hearing impaired population in the UK uses mobile SMS messaging to communicate (and to report crimes –more and more police departments in the UK and US have been adopting this practice!). And while some carriers offer SMS-only plans tailored to hearing-impaired needs, some carriers still require both voice and SMS plans to be subscribed to – with many hearing impaired subscribers then paying for a feature they have no use for. But the reality for any subscriber is that SMS-only plans are limiting – especially for day-to-day work needs or when meeting new people one might like to keep in touch with.

For the hearing impaired in particular, adding a voicemail-to-text feature on mobile carrier plans can open up the circle of friends, acquaintances, business colleagues, doctors, you name it that previously would have been limited to SMS or email only communications. And for many older people the idea of typing an SMS is not the most user-friendly experience for communicating.

When I first joined SpinVox my grandma, at age 80 one of those `older people`, was so excited. Committed to retaining her independence it was frustrating to her that she couldn’t hear voicemail messages (even using her hearing aids – her ‘ears’ as she calls them). So she would try and listen to the messages 5-10 times before giving me a call and having me listen to them over the phone to let her know if that message from the bank was urgent or just a courtesy call. Now, with voicemail-to-text she can retain not only her independence, but also have a saved text message with all the contact or detail information she needs – no more scrambling for pen and paper to write it all down or the need to locate the scrap of paper or back of an envelope where a message was written previously (which we all know inadvertently gets thrown out…doh!).

Today in the US, voicemail-to-text services are available from Skype, Google Voice, Vonage and some regional carriers (surprising when compared to Canada where voicemail-to-text is available to more than 95% of the country!). Imagine how useful and cost effective voicemail-to-text would be if it was a standard feature in all major carrier mobile plans be it UK, US, Australia, etc? Given all the baby boomers in retirement age and the ever-increasing number of hearing-impaired individuals this is a service we can all benefit from.

If you’d like voicemail-to-text your carrier doesn’t offer it – ask for it! With escalating competition in the mobile market and carriers looking for new ways to retain loyal customers there has never been a better time to ‘ask and you shall receive’ from your mobile operator!
If you’d like more information on voicemail-to-text for the hearing impaired please drop us a line.

RachelL

A few weeks ago we posted on the SpeechTEK 2009 event in New York City and all the SpinVox happenings – such as SpinVox co-founder Daniel Doulton’s SpeechTEK Luminary Award and David Thomson’s, SpinVox SVP of Speech Technology, participation on three panels at the event. Now in its 15th year, SpeechTEK is the world’s biggest conference and exhibition dedicated exclusively to speech technology that brings together the brightest minds and industry leaders to discuss and debate speech technology ideas, innovations, services and solutions we can all benefit from and use.

We wanted to check in with David post-SpeechTEK (he’s been attending the annual event since 1998!) and hear some of his thoughts on the ideas and trends coming out of this year’s event and what the near-and-long term implications for the speech technology industry may mean. David has 25 years experience in the speech technology and telecommunications world – many of those spent as CTO of Lucent Speech Solutions – so he knows a thing or two about speech tech and had some interesting insights to share.

A Q&A with David Thomson….

Q. How many years have you been attending SpeechTEK and what has changed?
I’ve attended every year but one since 1998. In the 90s, the big question was, “Will speech recognition really work?” Now everyone knows it works. The new question is, “What can I build with it and how much money will it make?”

Q. What is the SpeechTEK event best known for?
It’s the world’s largest speech technology show and a great place to contact customers and partners and to get the inside story on the latest in the industry. By the way, with so many of the brightest in the business there, Daniel Doulton’s selection as a Speech Luminary is that much more impressive.

Q. What panels did you present on at SpeechTEK this year?
In one presentation, I described how live agents back up speech technology to provide high-quality, low-cost services. The discussion addressed head-on some of the issues popping up in the press recently and SpinVox is the first company to talk so openly about the process behind speech-to-text, so there was considerable curiosity. The session was well attended and there were a lot of questions. As chairman of the Advanced Dialogs Forum, I was invited to speak on efforts underway to define the next generation of conversational human-machine interfaces. We’re planning for the day when you talk to a computer much as you would to another person. I also moderated a session on speech technology in call centers, which required extraordinary skill in writing on a small notepad, “You have 3 minutes left.”

Q. What were some of the trends you noticed?
I’ve seen a long-term shift away from core speech R&D and towards new applications. I think this reflects a maturity in the field. Examples this year include,
1. Social networking (blogs, tweets, etc.) are viewed as promising sectors in the speech business.
2. More smart phones are starting to integrate speech with video, touch screens, and other handset features.
3. Recognition of unrestricted spoken input, once viewed as technologically impossible except on Star Trek, is making its way into web search, language translation, and voice message conversion such as we do at SpinVox.

Q. What was the most interesting thing you learned?
My favorite presentation was from Columbia University on research into detecting emotion (anger, excitement, etc.) from a voice signal. The automated classifiers actually beat human accuracy in some cases. The man vs. machine challenge is always interesting.

Q. Where do you see speech technology going in the next 12 months?
I expect a gradual shift away from menu-based IVR towards machines that ask, “How may I help you?” and carry on conversation-style dialogs. In the past, these systems have been terrifically expensive to build, but new tools are bringing the cost down. At the same time, speech recognition is rising to the challenge of better understanding unrestricted speech, so look for more natural language applications.

Q. What got you into speech technology and what keeps you here?
In 1973, my Jr. High band teacher played a record of Bach music performed on a Moog synthesizer. I was instantly hooked. My interest in electronic music led to speech processing – the equations are similar. Speech is a fascinating mix of mathematics, algorithms, and psychology, and the prospect of giving human-like abilities to a computer adds to the adventure. I get most excited about being part of something no one has ever done before.

Q. Why did you join SpinVox?
I joined SpinVox because the speech-to-text business is growing faster and I see more technology innovation than in any other area of speech. It’s also a chance for redemption. For 25 years I’ve been guilty of foisting complex services on people that forced them to talk to a machine. We thought the services were cool, but from a user perspective, some of them were about as popular as tax audits. Now I’m working on a service everybody wants because it lets them avoid talking to machines.

Much has been in the news lately on the dangers of texting while driving. Just last week New York’s Governor Paterson signed a statewide ban on texting while driving that according to Newsday covers cell phones, BlackBerries and other personal digital assistants, pagers, electronic gaming devices, laptops, two-way messaging systems and other equipment for text messages while driving. Seems iPods are excluded, along with messaging in an emergency. A violation is punishable by a fine of up to $150.

This statewide law is not going to be the last – in fact 23 states today have enacted such bans. And a group of US Senators are currently looking into their role in legislating texting while driving – a missive that garnered further fuel for the fire following the released results of a Virginia Tech Transportation Institute study that found truck drivers that text while driving are 23 times more likely to get into an accident. Or put another way, the study concluded drivers who were text messaging had their eyes off the road for 4.6 seconds over a six-second interval, or enough time to travel the length of a football field at 55 mph.

Common sense tells us it probably isn’t wise to drive while texting – good to have both eyes on the road and hands on the wheel – for everyone’s safety. But, the allure of texting in the moment is too great to deny. We know. We’ve seen the research that shows text messages are responded to within minutes if not seconds – whereas voice messages can go unheard for days or left in the unheard message abyss forever. Texting is fun, exciting and addictive!

What many may not realize is that there are solutions out there today to help everyone meet in the middle. We at SpinVox have long been proponents of speaking one’s text messages and even recently worked with nFinity to co-develop a speak-an-email functionality in the Quick Voice Pro iPhone app. One click, speak your email or memo to yourself and it is delivered to the selected email inbox in minutes!

Today if you are a SpinVox customer in the U.S. chances are you already have speak-a-reply as part of your VoxLinks at the bottom of each message. One click, speak a message and the recipient receives a text.

But what about the rest of you who aren’t on one of SpinVox carrier partner networks or an iPhone user? Ask and you shall receive! Ask your mobile carrier to make available a speak-a-text option as part of your plan!  In the meantime if you are based in the US you can try SpinVox speak a text by dialing 980 939 8785.  You can save the number on your phone and use the service again and again. SpinVox will not charge you for the service but network charges may apply to your call. If you are based in the UK, Spain or Canada simply click on `Try SpinVox` on your SpinVox country home page for your SpinVox speak a text number.

Speech-to-text technology is here today – highly accurate, reliable and can work on any network. Free your thumbs while driving – you may just be saving your life or someone else’s.