Microsoft Debuts Customizable Speech-To-Text Tech, Releases Some Cognitive Services Tools To Developers

Microsoft is readying three of its 25 Cognitive Services tools for wider release to developers. From a report on GeekWire: Microsoft's AI and Research Group, a major new engineering and research division formed last year inside the Redmond company, is debuting a new technology that lets developers customize Microsoft's speech-to-text engine for use in their own apps and online services. The new Custom Speech Service is set for release today as a public preview. Microsoft says it lets developers upload a unique vocabulary -- such as alien names in Human Interact's VR game Starship Commander -- to produce a sophisticated language model for recognizing voice commands and other speech from users. It's the latest in a series of "cognitive services" from Microsoft's Artificial Intelligence and Research Group, a 5,000-person division led by Microsoft Research chief Harry Shum. The company says it has expanded from four to 25 cognitive services in the last two years, including 19 in preview and six that are generally available.

Re:Does it understand "Microsoft is a piece of shi

[mugurel]

Microsoft *Research* is by no means a piece of shit.

Re:

[diesalesmandie]

Posting to undo mod, got it mixed up with the parent, sorry

Re:Lousy network connectivity

[hackwrench]

That sounds awfully like my strategy for temporarily restoring connectivity when my Virgin Mobile (which uses the Sprint network) has lousy connectivity. The T-Mobile/MetroPCS network had better connectivity for the location I'm referring to, but MetroPCS customer service is substantially worse.

In a meeting somewhere in Redmond ...

[Billly Gates]

... Hey we need some more money fast! What do you guys can come up with?

Transfered employee from the CLippy project: Well I have an idea...

You didn't go far enough

[hackwrench]

I've noticed how current Microsoft offerings bear quite some resemblance to those earlier assistant offerings but they determined that the "cute" animated creature was "annoying". So, get rid of it, job done!

Given the direction they went with Win10

[ChodaBoyUSA]

I guess this will be full of spyware/telemetry.

Slashdot to Text

[Merk42]

If it's Microsoft, it's bad! It's probably EEE, or anti-competitive or something that I'd be fine with any other company doing, but because it's M$ it's EVIL!!1

My simple requirement

[ausekilis]

Unless it lets me configure it to talk to me like Joe Pesci or Gordon Ramsey, I'm not interested.

I want a GPS that tells me "You missed the turn, you F**king disgrace", but will settle for sending similar messages to friends.

Re:Scream

[hackwrench]

Wilhelm, of course! https://www.bing.com/search?q=... [bing.com]