SourceCode Dev: iSpeech driving Innovation in Speech Recognition Tech

 By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

Canadian Reviewer spoke with Yaron Oren, iSpeech COO, regarding the trends and applications of today's speech recognition technology. As mobile devices become smarter and more powerful, the ability to enable high level speech recognition for translation, voice activated control and other supplementary uses is becoming more important. iSpeech has the  DriveSafe.ly which is designed to assist drivers by reading realtime SMS messages and emails. It is a viable solution as people spend more time commuting and as distracted driving laws become ever more stringent. Our full Q&A follows after the break.

CR: How has speech recognition technology evolved in the last few years. What makes iSpeech a unique developer in this area?

YO: The quality of speech recognition has dramatically improved in recent years. The problem is that most solutions in the market are still far too expensive for developers to leverage. iSpeech is unique in making high quality speech recognition available for free to mobile developers. To that end, we really see ourselves more as a developer platform than a developer.Yaron Oren, COO of iSpeech: "We got our start on BlackBerry and have had a lot of success with BlackBerry but are platform agnostic."

CR: Speech recognition and smartphones seem to be made for each other how have you been able to integrate the two?

YO: Our vision at iSpeech is that every smartphone application will be voice-enabled. We are aiming to make this a reality by offering free and easy to integrate mobile SDKs for mobile app developers. Additionally, we develop some mobile applications ourselves to showcase compelling use cases for the technology.

CR: How does iSpeech decide which platforms to develop on for which products?

YO:We develop products for all platforms. The order in which we release products on the different platforms is a function of many different considerations.

CR:DriveSafe.ly is a really timely application and could save lives by curbing distracted driving behaviour. Tell us how this product was conceptualized and how long it took to develop.

YO:The application was originally conceptualized by Heath Ahrens, Founder and CEO of iSpeech even before iSpeech was incorporated.  The DriveSafe.ly app existed in beta form as early as 2008, but when an iSpeech employee was rear-ended by a texting driver, the project became a major focus of iSpeech.  The speech technology powering DriveSafe.ly and the application itself are the product of years of development and are continuously updated and improved.

CR: What is the biggest challenge when developing apps for multiple operating systems? Is iSpeech primarily a BlackBerry shop now expanding to cover other mobile operating systems?

YO:We got our start on BlackBerry and have had a lot of success with BlackBerry, however, we’re really platform agnostic. Our goal is to get our technology in the hands of everyone and that means developing for all major operating systems.

 

CR:Will we see your apps transfer over to QNX platform eventually, when RIM does decide to shift over their phone OS?

YO: Yes, we continue to see success with BlackBerry and plan to take advantage of new developments made available to us, including the new QNX platform.

CR:How has the app market changed since you started or since you established in 2007?

YO: The app market as we know it today didn’t even exist in 2007.

It’s a massive industry now. We’re betting widespread adoption of speech technology in apps is one of the next big trends.  

CR: Are you currently hiring developers? What sort of skill sets are attractive to you right now?

YO: We are always looking for talented developers on all platforms as we are continuing to grow.

CR: Tell us about iSpeech Buzz and how come you've chosen to have it in BlackBerry, iOS and Android

YO: Our goal is to get our technology in the hands of everyone and that means developing for all major operating systems.

CR: How supportive is RIM with you as a developer and partner?

YO: We couldn’t be more thrilled with the support we’ve received from RIM. It’s a big reason we focused on RIM early on and why we continue to make it a priority.

CR:Kindly explain a bit more about your partner program and how potential developers can benefit for joining up.

YO: It’s very simple. Any app developer that wants to add the same text to speech and speech recognition found in iSpeech apps can go to our website, register, integrate our SDK and launch their app for free. We have developers that are up and running in a few hours.  

CR: Any upcoming projects or products you'd like to promote?

YO: Nothing new at this time but we encourage any developers out there to give our SDKs a shot. Adding speech technology to mobile apps is our secret sauce for successful apps and we’ve opened up this technology to everyone for free.