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Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

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Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#211

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

lunixbochs wrote: post #36
bitwize wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably a crapton of patents for voice recognition. Also, if you cannot operate a keyboard and must communicate by speech to operate a computer, it's pretty much Dragon NaturallySpeaking or GTFO. Integrating NaturallySpeaking tech into Windows would be a huge boon and further cement Windows as the os to have if you have disabilities.

I have users who have intentionally switched their speech engine from the latest version of Dragon to Talon, for both dictation and commands. Talon is cross platform and directly targets accessibility use cases (far more than just speech input).

I switched from dragon to talon a while back... and then back to dragon :-\ Not to bash though. You've built a great product!

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#212

Post by AdrianB1 »

oblio wrote: post #148
xwolfi wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> The European ones are vast communist machines that can't pay for themselves. Do you have any proof of that?

A family member is an expert in this area working for the government in a high position for a long time and they update quarterly the estimations on when the system will fall, not if. The current calculation is less than 15 years and it is fairly constant for the past 10-15 years. In the discussions they have between countries the situation varies a lot, from countries that are going from default to default like Greece) or close (PIGS) to countries that are almost stable (Germany), but on average the situation is bad.

For example I was told 10 years ago never to expect to retire because there will be no money for the public pension system when I will have the age. It is on an accelerating fall and the politicians are messing it up even further, pensions were increased by law by 40% about a year ago: if there is no future, you can start ruining the present.

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#213

Post by dalbasal »

bombcar wrote: post #190
dalbasal wrote: post #188

I think a lot of big acquisitions make "sense," given the current market. The most successful companies have lots of cash, high share prices, and amazing cash cows. They could borrow for (almost) free, so resources are practically unlimited. Their R&D is already well funded. Most of their big, growth oriented endeavours are not cash-constrained. There are usually no factories to build or production to scale up. Googl…

Acquiring is a simple way to show the Board/Shareholders that you're "doing something" - but I suspect it's rarely very successful in the long run. Unless you acquire a business that ACTUALLY provides some synergies you're just on the path of transitioning from a successful company to a poor imitation of Berkshire Hathaway. It does have the advantage that you can "spin off" your acquisitions once they fail to do anyt…

I was actually thinking "Satya, you know that Berkshire is you end game here... right?"

I agree, but I think MSFT (and friends) are in this predicament no matter what. What's the alternative?

That said, I don't really think BRK is the end game.

For one thing, Berkshire is kind of an exception. There are plenty of smaller conglomerates that are actually like Berkshire, but most pretend not to be conglomerates. They pretend to be far more cohesive & synergetic than Berkshire.

Also, Alphabet shows that synergies can be easy to find. Youtube, Android... This generation's acquisitions need to be 10X bigger than that. But... these companies are in uncharted waters. No company has wielded free resources at the scale that MSFT now operates. They aren't the only one currently, but they don't have predecessors... unless we go back to VOC or somesuch.

OTOH... Satya is accidentally in the same position Buffet intentionally sought: Sitting on a pile of capital that must be allocated.

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#214

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

glutamate wrote: post #8
adler0901 wrote: post #3

Hopefully they'll fix Nuance's terrible website and support.

Hopefully they will fix a couple of bugs in Dragon as well. I really would like them to have a release focused on bug fixes rather than greater accuracy

If they got around to improving the python hooks too, that'd be pretty fantastic.

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#215

Post by dntrkv »

everdrive wrote: post #124
bombcar wrote: 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”.

This never seems to be a popular opinion on hn, but this is the ultimate Rube Goldberg machine: A complex ai built by a billion dollar company, an enormous amount of man hours, only so that switching a light switch because slower, and less deterministic. I'm certainly not suggesting that there are no valid uses for ML/AI, but digital assistants seem to be an enormous waste.

Ignoring the fact that the research isn't only used one for one purpose, a proper assistant is hugely valuable to me.

Simple things like:

"Remind me to X tomorrow at 9am" "Add Y to the shopping list" "Remind me to do Z when I get home"

This is the only way I do reminders now and it's great. It's especially useful while driving, or when I'm in bed nearly asleep and remember something, I can just tell Siri without having to get up and use my phone.

And as far as smart home controls, being able to say "Siri, turn all the lights on" or "Siri, turn the heater on" without having to stop what I'm doing and walk around the house flicking switches is really nice.

Assistants provide a very noticeable QoL improvement for me in many aspects. I think that's more than most other products on the market can say. And that's not even touching on the lives saved from not having to use your phone while driving.

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#216

Post by anotherman554 »

newbie578 wrote: post #135
varispeed wrote: post #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.

I'm just curious, do you and the people who agree with you think that Apple should also be split up? I personally am more Microsoft friendly, simply for the reason that they always had and have an open platform to everyone. I'm honestly interested in people's experiences and views on this topic.

They did not always have an open platform. Windows Phone was was a Apple style walled garden and Windows 8 did not allow applications outside the windows store to use the "modern" user interface.

The only reason Microsoft is trending back to "open" is they failed when they imitated Apple.

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#217

Post by iudqnolq »

somethingAlex wrote: post #167

I'm not super deep into the world to NLP, but from what I have kept up with, it seems that the state-of-the-art is almost constantly open-sourced. I understand certain companies have personal relationships already built which may be what MS is after more so than the IP, but isn't there a "canonical" way of building a, for example, speech to text system for your phone? Is there really a lot of NLP IP hidden behind cor…

Absolutely. Take a look at [this list][gov-uk-list] of free alternatives to Dragon. The only good free alternatives they list are the closed source ones built-in to Windows and Mac. Or have a look at [this announcement][nvda-announcement] touting open-source work to integrate closed-source voice recognition engines with an otherwise open-source piece of accessibility software.

gov-uk-list: https://accessibility.blog.gov.uk/2018/09/27/assistive-techn...

nvda-announcement: https://www.afb.org/aw/19/4/15104

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#218

Post by mrkramer »

>Microsoft tried to buy TikTok's U.S. operations last year in a deal reportedly valued between $10 billion to $30 billion.

>Reports suggest it's in advanced talks with gaming chat app Discord for a deal worth more than $10 billion.

>A report in February suggested Microsoft was eyeing a takeover of Pinterest, worth $53 billion on the public market. Last September, it bought gaming giant ZeniMax Media for $7.5 billion.

Microsoft is in full yolo mode since all other big tech companies have antitrust lawsuit against them. Microsoft spent its time on the cross in the 1990s and early 2000s now they will acquire anything they can.

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#219

Post by pedrocr »

dalbasal wrote: post #213
bombcar wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Acquiring is a simple way to show the Board/Shareholders that you're "doing something" - but I suspect it's rarely very successful in the long run. Unless you acquire a business that ACTUALLY provides some synergies you're just on the path of transitioning from a successful company to a poor imitation of Berkshire Hathaway. It does have the advantage that you can "spin off" your acquisitions once they fail to do anyt…

I was actually thinking " Satya, you know that Berkshire is you end game here... right? " I agree, but I think MSFT (and friends) are in this predicament no matter what. What's the alternative? That said, I don't really think BRK is the end game. For one thing, Berkshire is kind of an exception. There are plenty of smaller conglomerates that are actually like Berkshire, but most pretend not to be conglomerates. They…

> I agree, but I think MSFT (and friends) are in this predicament no matter what. What's the alternative?

Returning money to shareholders is the common solution for when you don't know how to grow more and profitability in the businesses you're already in and don't have any particular advantage in entering new ones. I'm not saying that's what they should be doing but sitting on a pile of capital that you don't know what to do with isn't a new problem that we need to invent new solutions for.

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#220

Post by xnyan »

TomVDB wrote: post #142
skrowl wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Siri is especially bad when compared to Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa, both of which are light years ahead. Usual Apple reliance on their fans buying their devices no matter how bad the software is.

I’m always surprised when people shit on Siri. I use it all the time for simple commands, and it works pretty reliably. I’ve never used anything non-Apple nor have I used any non-phone voice assistant, so I’m not in a position to compare, but as long as it calls the people that I want, sets timers and alarms as needed, and routes me to my city of choice, why would I care?

>I’m always surprised when people shit on Siri.

>I’ve never used anything non-Apple nor have I used any non-phone voice assistant

You're coming at it without experience. If you try the google and/or amazon version, you may still find Siri acceptable but I can absolutely guarantee you will not be surprised anymore when people call Siri shitty, because companied to amazon and google, it is.

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