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SpinVox "Recognition" Is Often Expensive Human Transcription
An anonymous reader writes "SpinVox offers to convert voice messages to text using a system called D2 or 'the Brain.' According to BBC News, said 'Brain' is often of the old-fashioned kind: SpinVox is sending private voice messages to South Africa, the Philippines, and maybe Egypt to be typed by people in a call centre, despite being registered as keeping all private data inside Europe and claiming that the text is somehow anonymised. Insiders say they transcribed 'love messages, secret messages' and everything else from beginning to end, and the company is being bled dry by the cost: SpinVox has been locked out of one of their data centers over a payment dispute. SpinVox refuses to comment further on details — but according to their web page, they're 'enabling the Speech 3.0, Voice 3.0, and Business 3.0 markets,' whatever that means."
Best algorithm, ever.
Now with 20% more vowels!
But it also knows what it doesn't know and is able to call on human experts for assistance.
http://www.spinvox.com/how_it_works.html
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
From their PDF:
Speech 3.0: Fully-hosted, commercial strength SLAs, proven scale and reliability - no CapEx. Scales on demand to 150m capacity
So Speech 3.0 provides 150 meters of service-level agreements with no experience-point cap.
Voice 3.0: Superior and proven range of voice products. We repeatedly deliver great, mass-market experiences with our expertise in marketing and management of all lifecycle stages.
Voice 3.0 takes you from larva, through pupa, all the way to butterfly, and then you die and get eaten.
Business 3.0: Mature yet flexible business models - designed to adapt to the dynamics of service brands we partner with, from on-demand to full lifecycle revenue strategies
Business 3.0 is apparently a flexible business model where they interact with their partners. So that's new I guess, no one has thought of that yet. It's also where people who write marketing buzzwords go to die.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Spinvox has a denial here, claiming this is a case of disgruntled employees spreading falsehoods.
Of course one'd expect them to deny it, but they've just upped the stakes. They would be in violation of UK privacy laws *and* lying through their teeth if this denial is false.
Go somewhere random
>>>Human brains remain the only high performance computer manufactured with unskilled labour.
I object! It takes a lot of skill to satisfy today's demanding women. And what happens if you lack that skill? They'll just jump ship to some other guy's bed. Unskilled labor indeed. It takes a lot of skill to convince Miss Prissy to let her guard down, bribe her with a 50,000 dollar wedding, remove the diaphragm, and let you impregnate her.
No I'm not bitter.
Although I do have this gnawing pain in my gut until I can taste the bile rising up my throat and into my mouth. Well. Maybe I'm a little bitter. Or else I just have heartburn; anybody have a TicTac?
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
That's nothing, I just bought an application that converts my speech to text. Read that back to me. I said, read that back to me. God damn it, what the hell is wrong with this thing. Stupid blinking light, what the hell is that supposed to mean? This is... oh here we go. No, don't send
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When we repealed the (very good) legislation enacted in response to the Great Depression, we restore to market to its natural boom-bust cycle. We'll keep going through these periods until we restore the safeguards that our great-grandparents wisely created. Even without the dubious benefits of computer models and Chicago economics, these people gave us 50 years of prosperity that we've managed to wreck in a decade. Shouldn't we stop arrogantly assuming that they were wrong, we are right, and accept that we might need regulation after all?
There service is grate eye ewe sit all the thyme and have no Corrs two comp lane. The dick shun eerie cheque reports no missed aches.
Losing your job to Bender: technological progress.
Losing your job to Apu: outrage.
But really, what's the difference? A service is a service. It's all progress .. sort of.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
And now you're saying that people who barely speak or understand English, let alone the subtlties of the language, being paid to transcribe English, is 'technically sound' and 'the best way to do it'? ...
I think it's more likely that these people speak better, more grammatically correct English than the average Brit or American.
I find it likely that the majority of these people who worked in these centers are young, recent college/university graduates who are doing this because they couldn't find another well paying job. This isn't a bunch of Angolans or Indonesians. We're talking about South Africans and Filipinos. The well educated South African and Filipino speaks, reads and writes excellent English.
For that matter, the same is probably true of Egyptians. Though I can't say that with any certainty because I don't know too many Egyptians.