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Future of DeepSpeech / STT after recent changes at Mozilla

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Re: Future of DeepSpeech / STT after recent changes at Mozilla

#31

Post by nshm »

echelon wrote: post #30

I'm not sure about Mozilla's efforts in STT, but they were lagging pretty far in TTS. [1] Google/Baidu, universities, and an assortment of Chinese/Japanese/Korean social media companies (Line, etc.) are posting the most compelling TTS research, models, and code. Mozilla's TTS system [2] is an amalgam of some of these models, but it lags pretty far behind state of the art. Mozilla should focus on getting additional re…

It is explainable given that there was a single developer working on TTS. It is hard to compete with big academic teams/industry players this way.

I also believe Mozilla team was restricted by a lack of computing resources. They had just a single 8GPU server or so.

Re: Future of DeepSpeech / STT after recent changes at Mozilla

#33

Post by liability »

jacquesm wrote: post #27
yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is the profitable product that Rust enables? Surely that's Firefox?

Firefox apparently is not longer a focus because it is hard to monetize outside of the search box, see earlier letter. I would definitely not take Firefox' future for granted at this point.

Firefox is the only thing Mozilla has ever been able to make any money with; anything else has gotten them a pittance at best.

Giving up on that because it's 'too hard', without first proving they have an alternative? That would be insanely foolish. They may as well close up shop now if that's their plan.

Re: Future of DeepSpeech / STT after recent changes at Mozilla

#34

Post by liability »

nshm wrote: post #28
convery wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to know a lot about the topic, any idea about the current state of text-to-speech? Haven't seen any opensource projects that would make, for example, an ebook enjoyable.

Recent more or less reasonable one is https://github.com/TensorSpeech/TensorFlowTTS , it implements all the latest algorithms. For simple business books it will be ok, for emotional fiction probably not there yet.

Extant TTS is already there for fiction, if you approach it with the right expectations (more an alternative to visual reading than dramatically read audio books.) I've 'read' numerous fiction books using MacOS's TTS ('Alex') and with my kindle (3rd gen 'keyboard' model from 2010.)

These extant solutions require an effort-investment from the user to work up to fast speeds, but once the user becomes acclimatized they work great. The neuroplasticity of the human brain seems to do a great job of smoothing out the wrinkles.

Re: Future of DeepSpeech / STT after recent changes at Mozilla

#35

Post by floatingatoll »

no_wizard wrote: post #8

I don’t know what is going to save Mozilla, really I don’t. I just wish there was a way to “reach” them and discuss how we the internet community could come to an agreement about what they could do to derive value we would pay for. It’s not for a lack of trying on their part for sure, but it feels like just using their browser isn’t all there is to it any more

What would you personally pay Mozilla for?

Re: Future of DeepSpeech / STT after recent changes at Mozilla

#37

Post by jacquesm »

liability wrote: post #33
jacquesm wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox apparently is not longer a focus because it is hard to monetize outside of the search box, see earlier letter. I would definitely not take Firefox' future for granted at this point.

Firefox is the only thing Mozilla has ever been able to make any money with; anything else has gotten them a pittance at best. Giving up on that because it's 'too hard', without first proving they have an alternative? That would be insanely foolish. They may as well close up shop now if that's their plan.

Fully agreed. It's a real problem.

Re: Future of DeepSpeech / STT after recent changes at Mozilla

#38

Post by echelon »

floatingatoll wrote: post #35
no_wizard wrote: post #8

I don’t know what is going to save Mozilla, really I don’t. I just wish there was a way to “reach” them and discuss how we the internet community could come to an agreement about what they could do to derive value we would pay for. It’s not for a lack of trying on their part for sure, but it feels like just using their browser isn’t all there is to it any more

What would you personally pay Mozilla for?

Firefox, Rust, and privacy.

It'd be really awesome if they could develop a search engine or phone (I know they tried) that had an open standards / web-compatible development kit.

I want an anti-Google / anti-Apple. Something we own and can extend. Something that doesn't sell our data.

I'd also like to see Mozilla doing lobbying. Partnering with the EFF. We've strayed so far from the bright and open Internet of the 90's and 00's. It's depressing to think about how locked up and proprietary it's all become.

I'll buy Mozilla / Firefox merch. I'll pay a subscription.

edit: Talk to Shuttleworth. Fold Ubuntu in. I'll buy a Mozilla phone and a Mozilla laptop.

Re: Future of DeepSpeech / STT after recent changes at Mozilla

#39

Post by feanaro »

echelon wrote: post #38
floatingatoll wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you personally pay Mozilla for?

Firefox, Rust, and privacy. It'd be really awesome if they could develop a search engine or phone (I know they tried) that had an open standards / web-compatible development kit. I want an anti-Google / anti-Apple. Something we own and can extend. Something that doesn't sell our data. I'd also like to see Mozilla doing lobbying. Partnering with the EFF. We've strayed so far from the bright and open Internet of the 90…

I feel bad for doing a "me too" comment, but you've nailed exactly my thoughts on the subject. I feel like Mozilla hasn't really tried something like this. Every time it gets suggested, it quickly gets shot down (by other internet commenters) as "can't be done" and "wouldn't generate nearly enough money".

Well... maybe not with that CEO salary.

Re: Future of DeepSpeech / STT after recent changes at Mozilla

#40

Post by echelon »

feanaro wrote: post #39
echelon wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox, Rust, and privacy. It'd be really awesome if they could develop a search engine or phone (I know they tried) that had an open standards / web-compatible development kit. I want an anti-Google / anti-Apple. Something we own and can extend. Something that doesn't sell our data. I'd also like to see Mozilla doing lobbying. Partnering with the EFF. We've strayed so far from the bright and open Internet of the 90…

I feel bad for doing a "me too" comment, but you've nailed exactly my thoughts on the subject. I feel like Mozilla hasn't really tried something like this. Every time it gets suggested, it quickly gets shot down (by other internet commenters) as "can't be done" and "wouldn't generate nearly enough money". Well... maybe not with that CEO salary.

Mozilla can model itself after Microsoft somewhat.

Provide a development stack (they're experts at Web and Rust). Make themselves the go-to shop for developers in that realm.

Sell them on an OS and editor with support. Partner with Ubuntu. Hell, I would even reach out to Nadella and see if they'd be willing to work with Mozilla on hedging against Google. Mac is becoming locked down and kind of unpleasant to develop on/for. Mozilla could win this.

Block all the advertising and tracking. Build a Spotify-like news aggregation service you can access from your Mozilla subscription.

Build an email service like Hey and a file backup service like Dropbox. It's too bad Zoom bought Keybase, but perhaps Chris Coyne wants a new gig?

We should team up to beat FAAMG. Most of the FAAMG actors are actually quite damaging to open source despite benefiting from it greatly.

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