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Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

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Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#81

Post by quantumwannabe »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #62
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 is not much to do with the speech recognition itself, but with the AI behind interpreting the commands. I'm indeed also a bit surprised that this hasn't progressed. It's still not possible to say things like "Turn on my living room lights and the hallway as well". It still feels very scripted where you have to say things exactly the right way and in bite-sized chunks to make it work. The same with Alexa by the w…

I just tried that command with Google Assistant and it worked.

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#82

Post by lunixbochs »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #80
lunixbochs wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'll take a look! I am still looking for the right speech recognition setup for my needs. I wrote an app that largely expects text input of the spoken command, and I'd ideally like to have hotword detection + speech recognition that can be set up to output the detected command to my own software.

What are you building?

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#83

Post by ocdtrekkie »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #24
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #13

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.

Microsoft's focus here is pretty well known: They've retired the Windows Speech SDK almost entirely in favor of Azure services, which is where the Microsoft Speech team has moved to, and the announcement explicitly stated Microsoft is bringing this under their "Intelligent Cloud" segment.

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#84

Post by cletus »

skrowl wrote: post #40
Spooky23 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

Isn’t it more likely that the quality of the voice assistant isn’t that important to most buyers?

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#85

Post by marktangotango »

tootie wrote: post #66
16bytes wrote: post #63

For those confused, this acquisition is due in large part by Nuance's dominance in healthcare related products. From Nuance's last earnings release[1]: “We are very pleased with the strong start to the fiscal year, as we delivered revenue and EPS above our guidance range expectations,” said Mark Benjamin, Chief Executive Officer at Nuance. “We continued to advance our strategic initiatives, accelerating our cloud tra…

I'm pretty sure Nuance also does the Comcast Xfinity voice remotes. They are actually really well done. And it's a humongous customer to have your claws in.

I have this and it really is quite remarkable. The entire voice integration in the x1 set top box is really polished. Other than the occasional "wow, this is pretty good for comcast!" I hadn't given it much thought until now.

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#86

Post by bombcar »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #62
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 is not much to do with the speech recognition itself, but with the AI behind interpreting the commands. I'm indeed also a bit surprised that this hasn't progressed. It's still not possible to say things like "Turn on my living room lights and the hallway as well". It still feels very scripted where you have to say things exactly the right way and in bite-sized chunks to make it work. The same with Alexa by the w…

It's insanely more frustrating because there is no standard list of commands - I'm perfectly fine saying things in the way the computer needs (what is a command line after all) but there's no reference listing what it is expecting so you just have to do trial and error to find out what works.

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#87

Post by technofiend »

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”.

Google's appliance recently decided to stream Dark Piano on The Choice on Tune In when I say "OK Google, stream NPR.". Those things are so far apart I assume someone took a bribe to redirect customers for certain keywords. Lol. (Not really but it was my first thought.)

Google's online advice is whenever the assistant fails to work just retrain the device. I remain skeptical that's the issue because it's not like my way of speaking has changed. Instead I have just switched to a new way to request what I need since reporting the issue via Google's vaunted customer service process seems likely to fail.

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#88

Post by ocdtrekkie »

lunixbochs wrote: post #82
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll take a look! I am still looking for the right speech recognition setup for my needs. I wrote an app that largely expects text input of the spoken command, and I'd ideally like to have hotword detection + speech recognition that can be set up to output the detected command to my own software.

What are you building?

I have been hacking on a home automation controller (that isn't particularly well written, to be honest) for a number of years, and voice is one area I do not want to have to figure out how to write myself. I am a bit concerned about having to heavily integrate with a model that requires I explicitly build sentence patterns in their software, because it'd lock me in pretty heavily to that solution.

(My wife has been using Dragon for dictation heavily lately, so that's a use-case that is intriguing to me as well, especially if today's announcement means the death of the Dragon product line in the near future.)

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#89

Post by CivBase »

Speech recognition in consumer electronics continues to be slow, unreliable, and a privacy nightmare. I can't tell you the last time I saw someone use it seriously. There are reasonable applications for it, but they are few and far between. I wonder what makes it worth $20B to MS.

Top comment as I'm writing this says Nuance has a strong presence in the healthcare device market, but I'd be surprised if that alone was worth the purchase price.

Re: Microsoft buys Nuance for nearly $20B

#90

Post by [deleted] »

tootie wrote: post #66
16bytes wrote: post #63

For those confused, this acquisition is due in large part by Nuance's dominance in healthcare related products. From Nuance's last earnings release[1]: “We are very pleased with the strong start to the fiscal year, as we delivered revenue and EPS above our guidance range expectations,” said Mark Benjamin, Chief Executive Officer at Nuance. “We continued to advance our strategic initiatives, accelerating our cloud tra…

I'm pretty sure Nuance also does the Comcast Xfinity voice remotes. They are actually really well done. And it's a humongous customer to have your claws in.

[deleted]
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