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Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

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Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#21
post #14

I think GitHub got better since the acquisition.

Or much worse: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26667101

Isn’t GitHub still in AWS though? Seems like they’ve just been pushing buggier software lately, perhaps that’s an effect of being under Microsoft but it also might just be an effect of growing faster.

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#22
post #7

Is it just me or have speech recognition platforms like Siri actually gone backwards in the last few years (roughly coinciding with the AI/ML craze)? It feels (anecdata) that Siri is doing a bit better on voice to tex when sending messages but much worse on simple commands like “turn off living room lights”.

Siri is brain-damaged. I am constantly disappointed with how stupid she is compared to Alexa and the gap is widening. I try to keep things as simple as possible with her because she always disappoints me. I wish Apple would open up a tiny bit of those 200 billion in cash reserves on improving Siri.

>she always disappoints me

siri doesnt default to female voice anymore.

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#24

This is really, really unfortunate. One of the last on-device speech companies is being bought out and moved into Microsoft's cloud division. Expect nobody to be willing to sell you speech recognition without a cloud subscription now.

You don't know their roadmap or plans for Nuance yet you attribute motive.

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#25

This is really, really unfortunate. One of the last on-device speech companies is being bought out and moved into Microsoft's cloud division. Expect nobody to be willing to sell you speech recognition without a cloud subscription now.

I'm in the on-device space, here's a recent demo of my engine for a niche use case (it also does large vocabulary dictation very well): https://twitter.com/lunixbochs/status/1378159234861264896

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#26
So Microsoft can see your private repositories, your documents if you use Office, your personal files (one drive), your company communication (teams), now they will be able to listen what you talk about. Where is this going? Should we trust this company so much? I think companies like this should be split up.

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#27
post #7

Is it just me or have speech recognition platforms like Siri actually gone backwards in the last few years (roughly coinciding with the AI/ML craze)? It feels (anecdata) that Siri is doing a bit better on voice to tex when sending messages but much worse on simple commands like “turn off living room lights”.

Siri is a train wreck. I have a $1200 phone where it takes more time to do “hey Siri FaceTime so-and-so” than to navigate. It just sits and spins.

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Siri is brain-damaged. I am constantly disappointed with how stupid she is compared to Alexa and the gap is widening. I try to keep things as simple as possible with her because she always disappoints me. I wish Apple would open up a tiny bit of those 200 billion in cash reserves on improving Siri.

>she always disappoints me siri doesnt default to female voice anymore.

Doesn’t default to male voice either, you will have to choose. I bet most people keep it what it always was (female in the US, some countries like UK were male voices).

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#30

So Microsoft can see your private repositories, your documents if you use Office, your personal files (one drive), your company communication (teams), now they will be able to listen what you talk about. Where is this going? Should we trust this company so much? I think companies like this should be split up.

And the worst part, the deal is likely going to be approved (or they would not be announcing it). There's just _no way in hell_ the current political landscape allows "splitting up" a company when it is still allowing to grow it even further.
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