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Google opens access to its speech recognition API

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Re: Google opens access to its speech recognition API

#141

Post by F_J_H »

blennon wrote: post #5

This is HUGE in my opinion. Prior to this, in order to get near state-of-the-art speech recognition in your system/application you either had to have/hire expertise to build your own or pay Nuance a significant amount of money to use theirs. Nuance has always been a "big bad" company in my mind. If I recall correctly, they've sued many of their smaller competitors out of existence and only do expensive enterprise dea…

You're right - this could lead to a lot of new innovation as a bunch of developers who wouldn't have bothered before can now start hacking away to see what they can do.

I've been thinking a lot lately about where the next major areas of technology-driven disruption might be in terms of employment impact, and things like this make me wonder how long it will be before call centers stacked wall to wall with customer service reps become a relic of the past...

Re: Google opens access to its speech recognition API

#142

Post by boulos »

oelmekki wrote: post #129
boulos wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's incorrect. This is a Google Cloud Platform service and when it reaches General Availability (GA) it will be subject to our Deprecation Policy. Just like Compute Engine, Cloud Storage, etc. requires us to give at least a 1 year heads up. Disclosure: I work on Compute Engine.

It's nice there's a policy around that, but I can understand the fears of someone considering using this to start a product - or even worse, a business. Google has an history of shutting down useful products, why people should trust that one for long term integration?

Because we don't have a history of violating promises like this when done in writing? Seriously, I'd love to call us just "Cloud Platform" so you don't have to think "oh yeah, those guys cancelled reader on me" but if you look at the Cloud products we don't play games with this (partly because we hold ourselves to our binding Deprecation Policy, but mostly because we really care).

Re: Google opens access to its speech recognition API

#143

Post by timbunce »

FWIW I'd just finished a large blog post researching ways to automate podcast transcription and subsequent NLP.

It includes lots of links to relevant research, tools, and services. Also includes discussion of the pros and cons of various services (Google/MS/Nuance/IBM/Vocapia etc.) and the value of vocabulary uploads and speaker profiles.

http://blog.timbunce.org/2016/03/22/semi-automated-podcast-t...

Re: Google opens access to its speech recognition API

#144

Post by JustFinishedBSG »

ragebol wrote: post #128
adyus wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been meaning to ask someone at Wit.ai this for a while: Since your service is completely free, how do you plan on surviving? Would you open source any parts of Wit.ai should you go under? I feel these are important questions to ask before investing time & energy into using your otherwise awesome service...

They've been acquired by Facebook, the main guys behind are now making Facebook M.

> They've been acquired by Facebook

Ah so it will probably be discontinued

Re: Google opens access to its speech recognition API

#146

Post by dimatter »

alfonsodev wrote: post #70

I'm reading many libraries here, I wonder what's the best open and multi platform software for spech recognition to code with vim, Atom etc. I only saw a hybrid system working with dragon + Python on Windows. I would like to train/ customize my own system since I'm starting to have pain in tendons, and wrists. Do you think this Google Api can make it? Not being local looks like a limiting factor for speed, lag.

http://voicecode.io

Re: Google opens access to its speech recognition API

#147

Post by zelcon »

boulos wrote: post #78
idiot99 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's anything like Googles other APIs, people will build applications on top of it, and then Google will decide to shut down the API with no notice. Fun to play with, but don't expect it to last...

That's incorrect. This is a Google Cloud Platform service and when it reaches General Availability (GA) it will be subject to our Deprecation Policy. Just like Compute Engine, Cloud Storage, etc. requires us to give at least a 1 year heads up. Disclosure: I work on Compute Engine.

Google Search API, Autocomplete, Finance, Voice all closed with tons of active users. I'm not blaming Google; they were acting in their best interest, but the consequence is less enthusiasm for building software that depends on their APIs.

IMO a better option for Google, when considering to close an API, is to enforce payment and hike the price enough to justify maintaining it. If and only if enough users drop out with the higher price, then shut it down for good.

Re: Google opens access to its speech recognition API

#148

Post by afsina »

BorisEm wrote: post #20
blennon wrote: post #5

This is HUGE in my opinion. Prior to this, in order to get near state-of-the-art speech recognition in your system/application you either had to have/hire expertise to build your own or pay Nuance a significant amount of money to use theirs. Nuance has always been a "big bad" company in my mind. If I recall correctly, they've sued many of their smaller competitors out of existence and only do expensive enterprise dea…

Other "state-of-the-art" speech recognition solutions already exist. For example, Microsoft has been offering it through its Project Oxford service. https://www.projectoxford.ai/speech

Kaldi is probably the best option now. https://github.com/kaldi-asr/kaldi

Re: Google opens access to its speech recognition API

#149

Post by visarga »

Negative1 wrote: post #117

I would be hesitant to build an entire application that relied on this API only to have it removed in a few months or years when Google realizes it sucks up time and resources and makes them no money.

It seems there are a few options. Devs could use an abstraction layer and change providers with very little effort. Also, by the way things seem to be going, voice will become more and more prevalent.

Re: Google opens access to its speech recognition API

#150

Post by nfriedly »

danso wrote: post #18

FWIW, Google followed the same strategy with Cloud Vision (iirc)..they released it in closed beta for a couple of months [0], then made it generally available with a pricing structure [1]. I've never used Nuance but I've played around with IBM Watson [2], which gives you 1000 free minutes a month, and then 2 cents a minute afterwards. Watson allows you to upload audio in 100MB chunks (or is it 10 minute chunks?, I fo…

It's 100MB chunks, and you can compress it with opus or flac to squeeze in more audio per chunk :)
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