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Google launches voice typing in Google Docs

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Re: Google launches voice typing in Google Docs

#71
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your actual voice is one regular warrant away, with a wiretap on your phone.

True, but that warrant can only be obtained from the judicial branch of government by law enforcement officers conducting a criminal investigation, and only if it meets the following criteria (among many others which I've excluded for brevity, see: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2518 ): - a full and complete statement of the facts and circumstances relied upon by the applicant, to justify his belief that…

> that warrant can only be obtained from the judicial branch of government by law enforcement officers conducting a criminal investigation

You seem to be laboring under the assumption that your phone company is more benign than Google, which is an assumption I am not willing to make (for Verizon or ATT among others)

Re: Google launches voice typing in Google Docs

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Safari doesn't support the 'getUserMedia/Stream API' so it can't work on safari.

Thanks. A quick search shows 'getUserMedia/Stream API' is supported in Firefox though and people on this thread don't seem to be able to use it in Firefox (I haven't personally tested).

Hmm, then maybe it's using the speech recognition API which is really only supported in chrome right now (it's in firefox but behind a flag).

Although i just assumed that google would be running the speech recognition themselves.

Re: Google launches voice typing in Google Docs

#73
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there something particular about Vietnamese that makes it easier than other languages for dictations? Like, does it lack homophones, are letters always pronounced the same way? 100% correct sounds incredible.

> Is there something particular about Vietnamese that makes it easier than other languages for dictations? phonemic orthographies (These languages should work better) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonemic_orthography English is highly non-phonemic the only language I would think is worst is French/Greek with silent letters and the different accents and in Modern Greek /i/ can be written in six different ways: ι, η…

What other languages are like this?

Re: Google launches voice typing in Google Docs

#74

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.

There are a lot of checks and balances internally re: who's allowed access to user data, even in cases where it seems logical & obvious. Regardless how it appears externally, Google does take data privacy & security very seriously (to the point where sometimes it's painful trying to get things done).

Re: Google launches voice typing in Google Docs

#75

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…

>What's the alternative? No voice-recognition? Voice recognition that only runs client-side and lacks all the advantages a centralised service can provide?

Distributed, self-hosting would be far safer than having all of your most personal information owned by a remote centralized authority.

Re: Google launches voice typing in Google Docs

#76

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…

Do the voice commands work for you? I just read it a letter from my insurance company and it was not far off word perfect, including URLs and email addresses. I can't get most of the voice commands to work though, which is pretty annoying. Punctuation and new paragraphs work, but none of the new commands such as deletion and formatting. It says English-only, but does that mean US English? I'm UK English.

"delete delete last word delete line select line delete paragraph oh I give up"

Re: Google launches voice typing in Google Docs

#78

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…

My prediction is client side voice recognition, as good as this, in >2 years.

Powered either by mobile GPU's and more efficient ML algorithms than we currently have, or specialist chips like http://www.movidius.com/

Re: Google launches voice typing in Google Docs

#79

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.

For talking heads speaking clearly in English, YouTube speech recognition is improving noticably.
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