Forget Listening To That Voicemail, Soon Siri Might Transcribe It For You

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(Vincent Lee) In an age of instant messaging and e-mail, some people still prefer to pick up a phone and leave a voicemail. But for the growing number of consumers who are voicemail-averse, Apple is testing out a new voice-text hybrid. Business Insider reports that employees of the tech giant are already experimenting with iCloud Voicemail, which uses Siri to answer, transcribe and send users a text of voice messages. The new system – which could be released next year if all things go well – aims not only to tap into consumers’ love of text messages, but also level the playing field for older consumers who continue to prefer voice messages. The voicemail-to-text network works when someone using iCloud Voicemail is unable to take a call. At that point Siri will answer instead of letting the call go to a standard digital audio recorder, Business Insider reports. iCould Voicemail then relays standard information – who you are, where you are, why you can’t answer – to the caller. Once the message has been left, Siri will transcribe the content into a text message for you to read. If a lot of this sounds familiar, it’s because Google Voice has been trying to do voice-to-text transcription for years, but with little luck. Between callers’ accents, speech patterns and phone connections, it’s not always easy for a computer to figure out exactly what’s being said. Apple is preparing to launch a voicemail service that will use Siri to transcribe your messages [Business Insider]

1. by Ashlee Kieler
2. via Consumerist

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