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Google launches voice typing in Google Docs

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Re: Google launches voice typing in Google Docs

#111

Post by ergothus »

athletics wrote: post #50

Am I the only one that finds text to speech cumbersome and more of an impediment than anything else? I applaud the effort, but spreadsheets are difficult enough to navigate at the best of times, let alone trying to manipulate with your voice.

Depends on the context.

Running precise commands? Keyboard wins.

No keyboard? I love the voice search of my roku 4 over trying to search via virtual keyboard and arrow keys, or using my Amazon Echo to find artists/songs

Long text? While I prefer typing, I remember one author I heard (Kevin Anderson, I think) who dictates all his books (first drafts) into a mini-recorder and pays someone to transcribe them. I find that hard to comprehend, but I bet he's not unique.

Spreadsheets? Keyboard wins for data entry, but I bet voice would be convenient for analysis. "Sum column B" "What is the average of column D, excluding 0 values"

Re: Google launches voice typing in Google Docs

#112

Post by marssaxman »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #34
cellover wrote: post #25

They have my emails, they have my documents, they have my pictures, they have my location, they have my browsing history, and now they can have my voice. Only lacks DNA, fingerprints, retina footprint and non-verbal communication. Oh wait, it's only a matter of time.

I was waiting for this comment. What's the alternative? No voice-recognition? Voice recognition that only runs client-side and lacks all the advantages a centralised service can provide?An equivalent provided by someone else that, for whatever reason, you trust more than Google? Edit: I didn't downvote you, though, and I've upvoted to counteract whoever did. The point you're raising can clearly contribute to an inter…

If the voice recognition were strictly client-side, I might actually be willing to try it. The advantages of a centralized service would appear to accrue largely to the centralizer.

Re: Google launches voice typing in Google Docs

#115

Post by eternalban »

thrownaway2424 wrote: post #97
eternalban wrote: post #85

Biometerics [1]. Googling for Google's biometrics privacy policy.[2] HN likes to talk about the layperson non-techies disregard for technology's impact on our rights, but a grep of this thread turned up no hits on biometrics. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biometrics [2]: https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=inurl:google.com+privac...

This thread doesn't hit on "chemtrails" either.

For obvious reasons.

Your voice is a biometric. Innovation is fine, but Google needs to address our digital rights.

Re: Google launches voice typing in Google Docs

#116

Post by kybernetikos »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #45
cellover wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand that my comment makes people uncomfortable as in "ha this is the typical anti-Google-paranoid guy". I respect that, and I used a specifically skeptic tone on purpose. I love Google, they make great products, but at the same time I can't help being afraid of this marvelous monster.

Oh, I hear you. Part of me totally shares your concern, and - just like pretty much anyone else - I wouldn't want Google recording everything I say into my microphone. But that's pure speculation right now; let's wait until we know whether or not they're actually doing that, or until someone's at least gone through the Ts&Cs with a fine toothcomb.

https://history.google.com/history/audio

Re: Google launches voice typing in Google Docs

#117

Post by SwellJoe »

rybosome wrote: post #94
ACow_Adonis wrote: post #24

Its pretty impressive. I haven't touched much upon trying such things for quite a few years when I last had a quick play with Dragon Naturally Speaking. It's getting PRETTY close, with a basic cheap laptop microphone, my Australian accent, and no training. But I did say pretty close. Not exactly right. And I'm only speaking a few sentences. I read out a passage aloud, and apart from not quite getting everything right…

> But then that makes me wonder, you know what... how many humans can actually follow everything I'm actually saying? It's not like I can peer into their heads and verify the transcription of voice-to-words inscribed on their brains. As far as I know, I have good hearing, and I often struggle to understand people. It would be interesting to see what a human error rate on transcription is.

I have historically done my own transcription for closed captions on my company's YouTube videos (we have a policy to never post a video without captions, as accessibility matters to us), but recently started outsourcing it to a friend on fiverr. We're close and she knows my accent well, and hears me talk about the subjects of the videos now and then, but even she has to verify some stuff with me along the way. I don't have an exact number for errors, or how often she has to verify words and phrases with me, but it's higher than I would have expected.

I also recall when I worked in television, we'd have someone come in to do captions for the Rockets basketball games...they made a lot of mistakes. Maybe every other sentence had a mistake in it. Partly this was the speed at which they had to type (using a Stenotype style device with chording keyboard), but I suspect they were also mis-hearing things quite often.

In particular, technical terms (whether for computers or basketball) are elusive if you don't speak the language. "WYSIWYG" was a tricky one, in one of my videos.

Re: Google launches voice typing in Google Docs

#118

Post by SwellJoe »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #19
sdrothrock wrote: post #5

I'm sure Google is mining (anonymized) data from this -- I wonder if they can use it to improve the transcriptions for Youtube automatic captioning by seeing what kind of revisions people make to the voice transcription.

I've often wondered this but it feels like they're very siloed. Google Now seems to improve every year; it almost never gets anything wrong that I speak nowadays but just a few years ago it could get rough if I'm trying to get it to type a bunch of stuff. But YouTube auto captions? They seem just as horrible today as they were years ago.

I recently started paying someone on fiverr to caption all of the videos I make. Costs practically nothing ($5 for five minutes plus tip), and is so much better than the YouTube auto-captions that it's not even comparable.

Re: Google launches voice typing in Google Docs

#119

Post by dcvuob »

shpx wrote: post #106
dcvuob wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Welcome to the future (of 2013): https://youtu.be/8SkdfdXWYaI?t=9m5s https://youtu.be/8SkdfdXWYaI?t=16m22s Don't forget to see the entire talk (28 minutes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SkdfdXWYaI

One important note is that your throat gets tired talking, just like your hands do typing.

I think it is an issue of convenience. Anecdotal evidence, I have never had trouble doing either of those for 8 hours straight (and more).

Voice will need some serious software support if it is going to take off. There is zero chance that users will learn those mnemonics, just as now almost nobody knows how to touch type. The usage will be more in the form of general commands, than specifying every action like we do it now with the keyboard+mouse.

Re: Google launches voice typing in Google Docs

#120

Post by spangry »

eternalban wrote: post #85

Biometerics [1]. Googling for Google's biometrics privacy policy.[2] HN likes to talk about the layperson non-techies disregard for technology's impact on our rights, but a grep of this thread turned up no hits on biometrics. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biometrics [2]: https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=inurl:google.com+privac...

There's some conversation about this fairly far down the page. It would appear that the HN crowd are not even slightly concerned about the privacy implications of 'passive' biometric identification. Given HN is a fairly intelligent and tech-adept demographic, I suspect the general population would care even less. Pretty worrying IMHO.

Short of surveillance cameras in our homes, I can't think of anything worse for privacy than government coming in to possession of passive biometrics like voice signatures (e.g. a google voice DB dump collected through a FISA warrant). Just in case people genuinely don't comprehend the danger:

1. They allow a third party to identify you against your will.

2. They allow a third party to identify you without your knowledge that you have been identified/authenticated.

3. You can't revoke a voice sig credential like you can with a password credential. Once the government has it, they can do (1) and (2) at will for the rest of your life.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/biometric-security...

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