An anonymous reader writes: Spinvox, the British company which turns users voicemail into SMS and e-mail claim this process is carried out by computer with only a small percentage being keyed manually when the 'Voice Transcription Software' has trouble deciphering the content. This is nothing more than 'spin'.
Spinvox bought an Irish company called Celtic recently. Celtic were transcribing messages, the good old fashioned way — by operator. Spinvox has a number of additional out-sourcing partners based around the world and all, yes all of the messages are transcribed by humans. This should come as no suprise as the patent Spinvox filed clearly states human transcription but they are making out they have this incredible voice transcription software. Ask anyone who has used voice transcription software about how long it took for them to set up their software to recognise their own voice. Imagine software that can recognise an unknown voice, either talking normally or perhaps stressed, they might have left the voicemail whilst walking down a busy street and yet, Spinvox still expect the world at large to believe that their software has overcome all of these obstacles. Wake up and smell the Java! All messages are transcribed by humans but the suprising thing is, that for a lot of these operators, English is not their first language. Perhaps subscribers have noticed how some common English names are transcribed incorrectly whilst Indian names are always correct...
I can only imagine that Spinvox wants the world to believe they have this world-beating software so they can present an image of a high-tech company with the added value this would bring. Well Christina (Spinvox CEO) you and I both know it is a sham.
Yes Spinvox have some funky software called Tenzing. It is simply a transcription module which downloads the next available message and has the facility to allow the operator to listen to the message, rewind and replay whilst recording the text. This is then sent back to the Spinvox servers and from there, sent to the intended recipient.
You can make up your own minds but perhaps, and just perhaps, you don't really want a 3rd person listening and transcribing your personal voicemail, you know the voicemails I am talking about, the ones your girlfriend/boyfriend/partner/wife/husband leaves telling you they are leaving you, the confidential business deals involving huge sums of money, the ones telling you a member of your family has been rushed to hospital. They are all transcribed the same way.
It's your voicemail and your call.
