It seems even strange to me that the article makes no attempt to survey other current examples of speech-recognition technology in order to support the unsaid implication of their lede. That is: "speech-recognition technology developed by those other than Google does not work."
I just downloaded the Bing app for iPad last night, and noticed it has a pretty decent speech-recognition engine from a company they acquired a few years back: TellMe. I tried all the examples given in the Slate article, and they were recognized just fine.
This makes me curious, are there a number of current-generation speech-recognition technologies that work at the level of Google's?
I should note that I didn't receive the desired behavior once my speech was recognized. When I asked the math question, a link to Wolfram Alpha was given, but I would have to click that link to get the answer. I had to go to maps to get any kind of relevant answer for "Directions to McDonalds," and I had to just say McDonalds and then click Directions to get the actual information. This failing appears to be a trait of the iOS app itself. Hand typing the math query into Bing on a proper browser did give me Google Calculator style results.
That's because it's Google PR (http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html). Nuance Communications[1] (who makes Dragon and N other speech rec systems), is really the leader in this space. They've done server-based recognition solutions ~forever, and is the solution Siri uses for their app, for example.
[1] Note: this is not the same as the Nuance Mike Cohen started, but a conglomeration of speech companies purchased over the the years which inherited the name.
Yeah, but... i've tried Google Voice Search and it works incredibly well; whereas Dragon on the iPad did not work well enough to actually use for its intended purpose (although it was fairly impressive - i had low expectations).
I just downloaded the Bing app for iPad last night, and noticed it has a pretty decent speech-recognition engine from a company they acquired a few years back: TellMe. I tried all the examples given in the Slate article, and they were recognized just fine.
This makes me curious, are there a number of current-generation speech-recognition technologies that work at the level of Google's?
I should note that I didn't receive the desired behavior once my speech was recognized. When I asked the math question, a link to Wolfram Alpha was given, but I would have to click that link to get the answer. I had to go to maps to get any kind of relevant answer for "Directions to McDonalds," and I had to just say McDonalds and then click Directions to get the actual information. This failing appears to be a trait of the iOS app itself. Hand typing the math query into Bing on a proper browser did give me Google Calculator style results.