Category Archives: Speech to Text Apps

From our friends in Australia: New iPhone app could rival telephone relay services

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Released 2/7/2012 by Media Access Australia

http://www.mediaaccess.org.au/latest_news/general/new-iphone-app-could-rival-telephone-relay-services

A yet-to-be-released iPhone app called Deaftel will let people who are Deaf, hearing or speech impaired make phone calls to hearing people without a third person acting as a relay operator. By providing a service where a person’s voice is converted to and sent as text, the Deaftel app will improve the ability for Deaf and hearing impaired users to communicate on iOS devices.

Developed for iOS, the mobile operating system for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, the app uses similar technology to Siri, the in-built voice recognition software assistant for the iPhone 4S.

Deaf or hearing impaired users can type a message which is then converted to a voice message and delivered to the hearing person on the other end. Hearing users are then able respond verbally and voice recognition technology will convert and send the message to deaf or hearing impaired users as text.

The Deaftel app will be a more private alternative to relay operator services, such as the National Relay Service, which are required for Deaf, hearing and speech impaired people to make calls.

The app is currently in testing phase and has not yet been released. According to the Deaftel website the service will be available to users who have US, Canada or UK phone numbers.

- Thanks to NVRC, Fairfax


SpeechTrans Launches App for Hearing Impaired

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Jun 03, 2011 (Close-Up Media via COMTEX)

From http://iphone.tmcnet.com/news/2011/06/03/5551042.htm

 

 

SpeechTrans, a provider of app-based multi-language translation, announced the launch of SpeechTrans Ultimate for Hearing Impaired.

 

According to a release, the new app enables the hearing impaired to conduct real-time two-way conversations in English, Spanish, French, Japanese, Italian and German and Mandarin Chinese without the need for sign language or an in-person translator.

 

“For hearing-impaired individuals, the internet becomes such a huge part of their world, and is especially important for communication, said Yan Auerbach, Co-Founder of SpeechTrans. “With our new Hearing Impaired version, we are using the power of technology to enable richer in-person conversations across language barriers. Unlike other expensive translation products that only offer text to speech translation, we provide a more organic conversation at a fraction of the cost.” With the new app, each person can simply speak out loud into the user’s mobile device, and have the translated text automatically appear. Type-to-type translations are also available for situations that require quiet, or for those who have trouble speaking because of disability. It is difficult for hearing impaired individuals to determine when someone ends their part of the conversation, so the Hearing Impaired version can automatically detect when a person stops speaking, and immediately begin the translation.

 

The app stores can play back previous translations, without access to an internet connection. In this version the auto-translate feature can be turned off, allowing same language conversations. Information from other apps can also be cut and pasted into SpeechTrans, so it can be translated and read aloud to another individual.

 

SpeechTrans Ultimate for Hearing Impaired features Facebook chat integration which allows users to type in their native language and have the other party receive translated output on the SpeechTrans enabled iPhone or iPad, or directly as text on their computer.

 

The development of the Hearing Impaired version was prompted by a SpeechTrans customer in Spain who described the usefulness of such a product. The unique functionalities of SpeechTrans Ultimate for Hearing Impaired were built based upon direct feedback from hearing impaired users who provided guidance on needed features.

 

The Hearing Impaired app comes with 1,000 pre-loaded transcriptions.

 

SpeechTrans offers multi-lingual person to person communication.

 

((Comments on this story may be sent to newsdesk@closeupmedia.com))

- Thanks to NVRC, Fairfax (6/14/11)