More on Voice to Text

By on May 4, 2009 in Telecom

I recently posted The Unspoken Future of Voice Mail. An opinion that voice to text transcription is coming in a big way.

Yes, I know. Voice recognition, home video phones, and jet packs have permanent homes on Disney’s Tomorrow Land. But speech recognition is coming (daresay here). Really.

I am utterly shocked how valuable transcription is. I’ve been using speech to text through Google Voice and this is the feature I love the most. I now realize how much I don’t like traditional voice mail. I guess there was a clue that since implementing unified messaging I completely stopped dialing-in to the server – opting instead to use the desktop player and speakers. Even on my cell phone, I prefer to download the .WAV files and play them rather than dial-in.

But speech to text is a far superior experience to even downloaded audio. With Google Voice it makes its share of mistakes – but generally there is enough to understand and act on the message. Particularly the call back numbers are almost always perfect. I can click-to-dial from the desktop and cell phone browsers – Styling with my voice mail in 2009.

This Avaya video demonstrates their solution utilizing Mutare Software and Spinvox transcription.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d25YEzptrNg]

Spinvox uses a combination of automated and human based methods to transcribe the voice messages. The computer technology self determines when it needs help and gets a human to assist for just those confusing words. This keeps the costs manageable, and the transcriptions accurate. Spinvox is not available to individuals – it is sold wholesale to service and solution providers.

Once the message is in text, it opens up a number of new capabilities including email, texting/SMS, search, and translation. You can even reconvert back to audio in a specific voice or gender.

I strongly recommend users consider voice to text transcription in their next voice messaging upgrades. The solutions are available from multiple vendors, or the solution can be found as a service if infrastructure upgrades are not in the near future.

Traditional voice mail will likely never go away, but its heyday is over. Email, twitter, Facebook, presence technology, IM, and voice to text are all reasons we don’t need to check our voice mail any more. Impervious to this progress appears to be Hotels (understandable) and cell phones (no explanation). The cell carriers really confuse me; they already charge us minutes to use the ‘free’ voice mail – seems they can hit us again to transcribe it and then more to SMS it. Based on my experience with this feature, it would sell.

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Apple: Farts are ok, but no Snorting Allowed

By on May 2, 2009 in Telecom

The iSnort iPhone application is useless and stupid; a couple of notches below iFart (one of the top selling applications in the Apple AppStore).

But the fact that only Apple approved apps can be loaded on an iPhone without jailbreaking the phones continues to both bother and amaze me. Can you imagine a world where Apple or Microsoft had to approve every application on the desktop? People complain about traffic cameras being too big brother… you should be able to install any app you want regardless of stupidity, tastelessness, or social standards compliance.

Apple’s clever and ingenious design of the iPhone is forcing us to compromise our terms of free choice. Danger Will Robinson! When will Android, RIM, Microsoft, and Palm offer us a reasonable iPhone alternative?

For more discussion on this topic see: There is No “i” in Phone.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-j-DGrWry6k]

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OCS & Keynote Thoughts

By on April 23, 2009 in Telecom

I posted a three part series on OCS at UCStrategies.com. Well, not so much OCS as the Microsoft Keynote presentation at VoiceCon. You can read it here.

But I wanted to add a couple more thoughts on the VoiceCon Keynotes in general.

Each of the four keynote speakers presented a strong view of how their products and services fit into the present and future of unified communications (UC). They all included a demonstration of their technology. Now remember, this is UC/phone system technology – geared for all of us. Yet not one of the keynote executives did their own demonstration – each called up a staff employee to perform the demo. If UC is to deliver on its promise of simplified technology – which they all stressed – then why can’t a corporate executive do their own demos? Consider Steve Jobs who for years has demonstrated cutting edge consumer technology – he concurrently conveys the superior design and simplicity of Apple’s products. When an executive needs assistance to demonstrate technology for all of us, we aren’t there yet.

Specifically regarding the Microsoft Keynote, I thought it strange that the Microsoft ResponsePoint solution was never mentioned. Microsoft actually has two telecom solutions – OCS and ResponsePoint (RP). RP is geared for small business and is totally separate and in fact incompatible with OCS. Unlike OCS, there are actually RP branded phones made by multiple partners and many of them were on the show floor. It would have been nice if they had discussed it a bit – for example, OCS uses Exchange for its message store – and ResponsePoint doesn’t. But Exchange is actively marketed to small business so why not? The RP solution includes (from multiple vendors) RP/MS branded phones – but none of these phones are supported on OCS – why? RP includes some voice recognition capabilities, OCS doesn’t; why? If these two product divisions don’t want to talk to each other that is fine with me, but I think a reasonable explanation or even a joke about it would be reasonable. That would be a good question to ask at the booth if they had one.

Which brings me to my final point. Why didn’t Microsoft have a booth? Microsoft was a Platinum level sponsor for VoiceCon. How does one become a platinum sponsor, and keynote presenter without having a booth on the exhibit floor? Yes, it’s true, Microsoft chose not to exhibit. Instead they booked several meeting rooms downstairs by “invitation only”. This stunt caused quite a bit of confusion and frustration as the booth is the traditional means to both demonstrate and communicate at a conference like this. To be fair, OCS was effectively being demonstrated in multiple booths as so many UC solutions now offer an OCS component, but it was pretty darn hard to get Microsoft information.

 

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End of the Line for the Ski Train

By on April 23, 2009 in Random

I normally write about technology related topics, but this one got my attention.

Yesterday, it was announced the Colorado Ski Train was sold and is leaving Colorado. This train has run from Denver to Winter Park ski resort since 1940.

The news was a surprise. Winter Park is undergoing major expansion and enhancements – a new village, new lifts, new condos. Winter Park has enjoyed the distinction of being the only Colorado resort with lift-side train service. The resort just closed for the season last weekend; the snow was great. Not to mention, downtown Denver is doing great. More and more lofts, more and more night life – the young and hip are able to walk to Union Station for a day of skiing sans driving.

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There Is No “i” in Phone

By on April 22, 2009 in Telecom

What to do if you need a new phone right now. There is really only one choice, and I’m not sure it is a good one. The gap between the Apple iPhone and the competitive offerings continues to grow wider. But what I find really frustrating is that this gap even matters; it shouldn’t.

I am grateful to Apple for changing the cell phone market. But I don’t think Apple’s motivations are in my best interest. I think back to the PC/Mac wars – which are still continuing on an emotional level, but not really from a functional level. Functionally the war ended, and the browser won. I use a PC, it is slightly more practical for my needs, but the reality is I run Office and about 20 browser windows. If I had a Mac, it would be the same. Macs offer a superior experience, but the overall functionality remains comparable. The Netbook’s rapid success provides a great example of the liberation the browser provides.

A friend of mine suggested the Killer-App of the iPhone is true Internet experience; I wish that was the case. It seems the killer-app is the Apple App Store. The iPhone is not the first cell phone to support third party apps (nor was the iPod the first MP3 player). Apple created a groundbreaking device, but restricted it so applications can only be sold/installed via their store. Somehow Apple turned this into a benefit – they censor the applications, take their time approving them, and charge 30% for their “value”. There is no legal way around it. But it doesn’t stop there – consumers are buying App Store apps at an amazing rate, creating multiple millionaires $1 at a time (Soon Apple will be announcing 1 billion app downloads). With each purchase, not only does Apple make money, but the consumer strengthens their commitment to the iPhone platform since their licenses are only valid on current and future iPhones.

I don’t deal with any such “Mozilla Store” or “Internet Explorer Store” or similar concept on my desktop – why should I on my cell phone? Internet apps run mostly within the browser in JAVA – some require Active X. Some new ones require Adobe Air – but few Internet apps require specific hardware or even OS. On the desktop, the browser is the killer-app – why not on the cell phone?

The App Store is a cute model, but I think the end game will more likely be similar to the desktop; a browser based Internet model. There are glimmers of hope. Two weeks ago Google released a new version of Gmail Mail Mobile, but the improvements weren’t the story. Google released the upgrades for iPhone and Android devices – and did so through the browser; bypassing the Apple App Store. Google created a web application built and distributed through the web/browser instead of the store. Just like Mom and Dad do on their desktops. This will liberate both the software developers and the users from the “value-add” chokehold of the App Store.

The iPhones and Android phone utilize a web technology called Canvas. Similar in concept to Adobe Flash, it allows developers to create graphics in their programs similar in quality to Adobe Flash. Canvas is part of the HTML 5 standard (in process) which also enables offline storage similar to Google Gears. Ironically, both Chrome and Safari use the same framework for their browsers, so Google and Apple together will likely continue to be the driving force in the mobile Internet. Plus net chatter suggests Android may be a popular platform in a variety of consumer electronics (in 2010).

The Android team recently released the 1.5 SDK which offers a glimpse of what may be. For example the AppWidget framework allows for third party widgets to be dropped into the home screen. There are also new APIs for new features such as live folders, speech recognition, and video recording.

But today, the model is the Apple App Store. Rim now has one, Google now has one, Nokia now has one (Ovi), and Microsoft is working on one. Each one incompatible with the others – a recipe that ensures Apple will continue to win as they are the smart phone leader. When developers have to choose and prioritize the iPhone wins.

Our wireless market is feudal. We have incompatible carriers and frequencies with incompatible phones and exclusive handset agreements resulting with enormous inefficiencies. As the mobile Internet takes the pole position in tele-tech innovation, we force developers and consumers alike to make commitments based on artificial criteria. Internet based applications should not lock you into a carrier or hardware brand. The web based model is far superior and evidently coming.

If I had to buy a new phone now, it would be an iPhone. But two years is eternity in this industry, so I continue to wait for a 2nd generation Android as I am partial to their architecture. But my current WM6 phone is getting tired.

 

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The Case to Buy Skype

By on April 17, 2009 in Telecom

It took a few years, but EBay finally concluded that Skype has “limited synergies” with EBay or PayPal. Not much of a surprise there. The acquisition was never understood and criticized by many. But Skype has done reasonably well under EBay – the service is strong and growing. The company generated $551 million in 2008 with healthy margins and EBay forecasts revenues will double to $1 billion in 2011.

EBay officially announced plans to spin Skype off via IPO in early 2010. They paid a total of $3.4 billion (with bonuses) for the company in 2006 and did a write-down of $1.4 billion off the books – but Skype is a valuable asset and many will be kicking its proverbial tires. Including the original co-founders, Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, who already made an offer. These two have done so well with Skype that it is only fitting they buy it back for a fraction of their selling price – but they will have to beat the competition first. Rumors have already surfaced that Google, Microsoft, and Cisco are all interested.


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Mitel Goes Mobile with Dynamic Extension

By on April 17, 2009 in Telecom

Mitel has kept a secret lately – Series-X. Teasers at VoiceCon said it was coming April 16. As it turns out, Series-X represented a new product and approach to mobility called Dynamic Extension and a new philosophy regarding proprietary hardware. I am really impressed with this new philosophy. During a tough economic period, Mitel is the only major switch vendor trying to enhance rather than replace legacy investments. Not only is Mitel enriching their core technology, but extending it from end point to server.

The predecessor to Dynamic Extension was a Mitel product called Mobile Extension (ME). ME enabled mobile phones to be twinned with desk phones. It was relatively simple to use and tore down many of the limitations surrounding mobility. Consider this scenario, you are out of town and get this call on your cell phone: “Sorry to bother you but I only had your number handy – can you connect me to Shipping at your office?” The typical response, or excuse, would be something like: “Oh, I am so sorry, you caught me out of town [guilt] so I can’t transfer you, instead can you call the main number 555-1212?” This response is perfectly acceptable to most, but not to me. We need to stop making excuses and compromises for our mobility. ME solved that by allowing calls to be transferred (with an esoteric star code **6) and handle the call without the remote compromise. If you are treating callers differently due to your mobility, you need a better mobility solution.

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If Only I Knew Then, What I Know Now

By on April 16, 2009 in Telecom

When I grow up I want to be a systems Integrator!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P89E1F7tryU]

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The Unspoken Future of Voice Mail

By on April 14, 2009 in Telecom

There is only one thing that frustrates me more than voice mail, people who don’t have voice mail. Five words I hate to hear: “Can I take a message?”

“Tell Victor that Ramon – -the fella he met about a week ago? – -tell him that Ramon went to the clinic today, and I found out that I have, um, herpes simplex 10, and I think Victor should go check himself out with his physician to make sure everything is fine before things start falling off on the man.”
- Beverly Hills Cop, 1984

Giving someone a message to relay is just too cumbersome, can be embarrassing, and usually requires us to simplify. It is far more efficient to leave a contextual message for the direct recipient without the “value-add” of an intermediary, voice mail filled that important role in the 80s. And voice mail systems have come so far over the past 30 years. My current office production system (Esnatech) offers a wide range of ridiculously advanced features. For example, my outgoing greetings can change automatically based on my Outlook Calendar, it has IM/presence capabilities, and can even indicate when I am “on the phone” while on a Skype call. Small business systems built into popular key systems are also increasingly sophisticated – features like screening (answering machine listening in functionality), and IMAP synchronization with popular email systems are common. Over the past few years, solid state systems have increased reliability by tossing out the moving parts. But as messaging goes, voice mail is no longer our only option; email, twitter, text/sms, are crowding the messaging space.

But despite all this, most of us hate voice mail systems. Not only do we increasingly avoid leaving messages on them, we avoid listening to them. Earlier this month, the NY Times ran “You’ve got Voice Mail, but do you care?” illustrating the point; “But in an age of instant information gratification, the burden of having to hit the playback button — or worse, dial in to a mailbox and enter a pass code — and sit through “ums” and “ahs” can seem too much to bear“. I completely agree. When I return to my desk, I check my emails, my tweets, and then consider dealing with the flashing light on the phone; sometimes.

Last January, I wrote a post about all the things Cell phones have Killed, I am wondering if “traditional” voice mail systems should be added. Most cell phones come with voice mail, so the statement may seem contradictory, but think of how our behavior has changed. If the office line goes to voice mail, do you leave a message or just dial the cell number when you have it? Assuming you get voice mail again, do you A) leave a recorded message, B) hang-up and assume the “missed calls” flag will be sufficient to merit a call back? Or C) send an Email? If you answered A, there is a good chance you are wasting your breath. The NY Times continues:

“Data from uReach Technologies, which operates the voice messaging systems of Verizon Wireless and other cellphone carriers, shows that over 30 percent of voice messages linger unheard for three days or longer and that more than 20 percent of people with messages in their mailboxes “rarely even dial in” to check them, said Saul Einbinder, senior vice president for marketing and business development for uReach, in an e-mail message.

By contrast, 91 percent of people under 30 respond to text messages within an hour, and they are four times more likely to respond to texts than to voice messages within minutes, according to a 2008 study for Sprint conducted by the Opinion Research Corporation. Even adults 30 and older are twice as likely to respond within minutes to a text than to a voice message, the study found.”

Surprised? Probably not. The fact is as I write this my phone is flashing. But voice mail is an important tool in the UC arsenal, and isn’t likely going completely away even as its usage declines. More and more we are guarded with our email addresses and our phones remain our portal to the outside world. To illustrate the point, today I contacted Eric Effron of the The Week who referenced the above NY Times article in his magazine. I had a quick question for him, so I searched the magazine for his email; none. Then I tried trying to find him on Twitter; nope. So I resorted to the main number in the masthead and left him a voice mail. In my message, I offered my phone number and email for return contact; and when he responded, it was by email. Both parties worked hard to avoid voice mail, but it worked its job nicely when “called upon”. His email contained much more information than reasonably found in a voice mail, including a web link. Voice just doesn’t cut it for our data driven world…. “Price check on this can of peas? Thin line, thin line, thick, thick, thick, thin, thick….”

Don’t think the cell companies are giving away voice mail because people want it, they give it away because it is a huge money maker. Most people don’t realize that cell phone plans that include free “cell to cell” calls do not include cell to voice mail. That is why the cell phone prompts are so incredibly slow, drawn-out, and offer ridiculous options such as “to page this person”. It isn’t a beep you hear, it is a cash register ringing

But even if we don’t like voice mail, we accept it. It fills an important hole for people we don’t know very well. We hate to leave messages and we hate to play them, but there doesn’t really seem to be an alternative. Or is there? Recently, I switched over most of my personal calls to Google Voice. This service offers voice mail transcription, and I get the messages sent to me via email (with the Wav file in case I need it) as well as SMS texted to me (multiple texts for longer messages). The service has its flaws, but its speech recognition seems far superior than the system United Airlines uses (“Operator”, “Did you say ‘Tucson’?”). There is usually enough recognized accurately to get the point of the message, though I am sure mis-transcriptions could provide plenty of humorous material for episodes of Three’s Company.

I thought the voice mail transcription would be an interesting, maybe even fun, feature. But it turns out to be much more. I find that I can now check my voice mail messages practically real time instead of waiting for a time to play them. There are lots of times it’s easy to glance at the phone for messages, but highly inappropriate to dial-in or download them; such as being in a seminar, or riding on a chairlift. I find myself in agreement with the NY Times article, once I started getting my voice mail messages as text, they did indeed get literally “read” much quicker.

It appears speech recognition is ready to move out of the scifi lab (please tell United). It has been promised for so long. The technology has dramatically improved. At VoiceCon, Cisco demonstrated near real time recognition and translation (Chinese to English) during a videoconference. Microsoft’s Response Point small business phone system, comes with speech recognition as a standard feature. To my dismay, some credit card companies have taken away my right to dial my account number and now require me to say it. I’ve been very impressed with Google’s free directory assistance (800-Goog411) (this is the R&D; engine for Google’s voice recognition engine). Google Voice is still largely closed to new customers, but don’t fret if you want to try this feature out. Several companies now offer the service, such as callwave.com, spinvox.com, and phonetag.com; they will transcribe messages and text/email them for a small fee.

I am finding speech recognition, for the first time, actually useable and voice mail transcription useful. In fact, I am shocked how valuable voice mail transcription is. It is a great example of how UC can really increase productivity – long term flashing lights get responses; before I ever see it flashing. It means I can get my messages as a Wav file, as a text file, or as an email – I can play them or read them – any place, any device, any format that suits my situation. I’ve been getting Wav files on my cell email for years, but text opens a whole new world of responsiveness. Another added feature of Google Voice is texts get stored online and are searchable.

The future (according to Star Trek) doesn’t have voice mail. Colleagues just intercom directly which seems a bit annoying. I think this is one area where I think our future trumps theirs. And if you don’t agree, please feel free to leave a message. Dave Out.

 

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Will Amazon Inherit the World?

By on April 14, 2009 in internet

I recently blogged that the Internet, or more broadly the technology revolution that is changing the way we live and work, is likely contributing to our recession. You can read that post here: Is the Internet to Blame for the Recession?

Today, I saw Amazon: Now One Third of all US E-Commerce.

Amazon.com
(AMZN) could be responsible for close to a third of all U.S. e-commerce transactions, RBC Capital analyst Stephen Ju asserted in a research note this morning. Ju notes that Amazon’s reported revenues consist of a mix of gross revenues from its own businesses plus net third-party commissions. To date, he notes, Amazon has not given a break down of the two numbers, other than as a percentage of units shipped. The question, he says, is how much third-party gross merchandise value is flowing through Amazon’s platform – and what slice of all e-commerce Amazon is actually facilitating.

Performing a “gross-up” analysis, he concludes that “AMZN may be facilitating close to a third of all e-commerce in the U.S.,” and that it continues to gain share here. He also sees opportunity for further gains in international online retailing.

Actually, Ju’s data suggests the total slice of U.S. e-commerce through Amazon was about 34% in Q4, up from 27% a year earlier.

Ju this morning repeated his Outperform rating on the stock, and upped his price target to $84, from $72. He also upped his 2009 EPS estimate to $2.13, from $1.99.

In early trading, AMZN is down 82 cents, at $78.12.

I honestly don’t understand how retailers will continue to survive, outside clothing and food. Yes, there is always those that need to see things before they buy things; but many of these folks see locally and then buy online. The remaining folks that do buy in the stores are diminishing. The compromise required on price, selection, and opening hours is becoming too great. The online customer service experience is also increasingly hard to beat. I shared before that my wife bought shoes for the kids at Zappos- while at the local shoe store out of stock of the desired size. She scanned the barcode in the store on her phone and ordered online for the same price (actually cheaper since it was tax free and free shipping). That was at least 6 months ago, and we haven’t been back to the store since.

Nor is this iShift limited to retail. In my post, I wrote about the impact the DVR is having on television, but I later read a far more in-depth article in the Atlantic Journal on the same subject. In The Future is Cheese, the article suggests that prime time television may end up being targeted for “saps and morons” with low cost reality shows for those who can’t figure how to work a DVR. The cost of scripted shows, such as Heroes, may go the way of the dodo as the networks fill their time with low cost or sponsored programming. The economics and risks associated with scripted shows are relatively becoming too risky.

Since we now digitize just about everything –photos, books, movies, news, etc. the established models are crumbling. I am not sure we thought this one through – as our cherished publishers and content creators go out of business along with our retailers. But at least we will have lots of prime space available for businesses immune to the Internet – barbershops, bakeries, and shipping stores.

 

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