Mozilla releases its speech-recognition system
I’m excited to announce the initial release of Mozilla’s open source speech recognition model that has an accuracy approaching what humans can perceive when listening to the same recordings. We are also releasing the world’s second largest publicly available voice dataset, which was contributed to by nearly 20,000 people globally."
Posted Dec 4, 2017 18:22 UTC (Mon)
by dc123 (guest, #117760)
[Link] (29 responses)
Posted Dec 4, 2017 18:38 UTC (Mon)
by atai (subscriber, #10977)
[Link]
Posted Dec 4, 2017 18:47 UTC (Mon)
by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
[Link] (25 responses)
Speech synthesis and recognition are two areas that are really lacking any good OpenSource solutions. And it's not easy or feasible to simply write one by yourself, you need a lot of model data and training.
Posted Dec 4, 2017 20:26 UTC (Mon)
by flussence (guest, #85566)
[Link] (23 responses)
Posted Dec 4, 2017 22:01 UTC (Mon)
by Frogging101 (guest, #113180)
[Link] (15 responses)
Huh? What do you mean by this?
Posted Dec 4, 2017 22:35 UTC (Mon)
by flussence (guest, #85566)
[Link] (14 responses)
Posted Dec 4, 2017 23:00 UTC (Mon)
by mjblenner (subscriber, #53463)
[Link]
Firefox account -> Manage account -> Communication preferences ?
I don't remember a tickbox when I signed up, but I'm unsubscribed to "Latest news", and haven't received any non-account emails from Mozilla.
Posted Dec 4, 2017 23:13 UTC (Mon)
by Frogging101 (guest, #113180)
[Link] (12 responses)
> We may send you emails related to your Firefox Account.
> Additionally, you can choose whether to receive the latest news about Mozilla and Firefox.
And then a blue subscribe button. It doesn't look like I'm subscribed, and I know I never explicitly unsubscribed, so I don't think I ever was. I believe I created my account quite some time ago (4+ years?), however.
Posted Dec 5, 2017 6:57 UTC (Tue)
by flussence (guest, #85566)
[Link] (11 responses)
But no, they abused the sanctity of my inbox (for some inane rubbish about a junk toolbar that can't be removed but they know everyone hates), and that's a cardinal sin up there with the likes of Sony trojaning audio CDs. I won't be forgetting it for a long time.
Posted Dec 5, 2017 7:19 UTC (Tue)
by andrewsh (subscriber, #71043)
[Link] (9 responses)
Posted Dec 5, 2017 9:17 UTC (Tue)
by donbarry (guest, #10485)
[Link] (8 responses)
I've been a strong critic of Mozilla's corporate management, though this speech-recognition contribution is a substantial gift and will enable significant improvements in free software accessibility while using free software.
But I agree, I don't give a pass to Mozilla for its cavorting with the likes of Pocket, and if I used their sync services (I don't, since I don't trust them) I'd be infuriated to learn they were selling me out as the same piece of meat that 'everyone else' does.
It's been a long slippery slope, and we're far from the bottom.
Alexander Pope:
Posted Dec 5, 2017 12:16 UTC (Tue)
by TheLessThanAmazing (guest, #119480)
[Link] (3 responses)
Cavorting? Pocket has been wholly owned by Mozilla since February.
Posted Dec 6, 2017 19:44 UTC (Wed)
by lsl (subscriber, #86508)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Dec 6, 2017 20:18 UTC (Wed)
by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
[Link]
Posted Dec 7, 2017 9:23 UTC (Thu)
by rillian (subscriber, #11344)
[Link]
Pocket announced this week that they were publishing source for three components related to non-Firefox browser extensions. Firefox integration was started as a public project. AFAIK source for the Android and iOS clients has not been published, nor has the server. The announcement was at the weekly public status meeting, around 20 minutes in.
Posted Dec 5, 2017 12:19 UTC (Tue)
by tajyrink (subscriber, #2750)
[Link] (3 responses)
Posted Dec 5, 2017 12:58 UTC (Tue)
by pizza (subscriber, #46)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Dec 15, 2017 7:53 UTC (Fri)
by flussence (guest, #85566)
[Link] (1 responses)
It's something I've often wondered about doing myself, but Mozilla have thoroughly whitewashed the browser UI and their website of any hint that users ever had a vote in the matter. Maybe my pockets aren't deep enough to know.
Posted Dec 15, 2017 12:49 UTC (Fri)
by pizza (subscriber, #46)
[Link]
I stuck with v1 until the browser dropped support for it altogether (ff v55 I think), because of the royal PITA it was to install the authentication backend that the v2 sync service relied upon.
But now I have a v2 ffsync instance running, but it's talking to the official firefox authentication servers. [1] Took something like ten minutes to set up, including changing the preference on the browser clients to point at my sync instance..
[1] The only information that mozilla stores about me is my email address and a unique password. And the timestamps when I authenticated each individual browser. The actual sync service is entirely self-contained.
Posted Dec 19, 2017 14:53 UTC (Tue)
by knobunc (subscriber, #4678)
[Link]
Right click > Remove from Address Bar.
-ben
Posted Dec 4, 2017 22:24 UTC (Mon)
by sdalley (subscriber, #18550)
[Link] (6 responses)
Posted Dec 4, 2017 22:37 UTC (Mon)
by flussence (guest, #85566)
[Link] (5 responses)
Posted Dec 5, 2017 1:36 UTC (Tue)
by roc (subscriber, #30627)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Dec 5, 2017 8:08 UTC (Tue)
by flussence (guest, #85566)
[Link]
...and the worst complaint I've come up with is that it doesn't correctly render a badly written web app that uses proprietary features from someone else's browser. Maybe I should stop whining and give it a chance now.
Posted Dec 5, 2017 15:02 UTC (Tue)
by daenzer (subscriber, #7050)
[Link]
Posted Dec 5, 2017 12:19 UTC (Tue)
by TheLessThanAmazing (guest, #119480)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Dec 5, 2017 20:05 UTC (Tue)
by zlynx (guest, #2285)
[Link]
The PSR enable and it being used from user-space all depend on a complicated set of rules about compatible versions of hardware and software, so it is very possible to have one Intel GPU flicker and another one not flicker. Or even the same hardware but depending on Ubuntu vs Fedora. Or X.org vs Wayland.
Posted Dec 5, 2017 15:35 UTC (Tue)
by ajmacleod (guest, #1729)
[Link]
Speech recognition is definitely not something I want, anywhere, ever (and works abominably every time I've ever used it) but I can see the benefits to others from an accessibility point of view; it's a slightly less pointless diversion than Mozilla have been prone to wasting resources on over the past few years.
Posted Dec 5, 2017 1:16 UTC (Tue)
by roc (subscriber, #30627)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Dec 5, 2017 1:24 UTC (Tue)
by roc (subscriber, #30627)
[Link]
Posted Dec 4, 2017 18:59 UTC (Mon)
by karkhaz (subscriber, #99844)
[Link] (9 responses)
Posted Dec 5, 2017 5:59 UTC (Tue)
by eru (subscriber, #2753)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Dec 5, 2017 11:14 UTC (Tue)
by nix (subscriber, #2304)
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Posted Dec 5, 2017 13:44 UTC (Tue)
by ledow (guest, #11753)
[Link] (6 responses)
"Navigate to Edgware Station"
and get ANYTHING useful back whatsoever, I'd rather we really didn't waste time on voice recognition at all, certainly trying to make dictation engines.
We were literally unable to make the simplest commands, spoken in the most normal manner, in the quietest of cars (not even moving for the first ten minutes but then we gave up and headed the way we knew we would have to start), using everything we had available and the range of voices we had get close. And we were honestly trying, because we didn't know the way and wanted a quick start.
I was also once in a seminar for teachers that suggested they could dictate their school reports via the Dragon iPad apps. Obviously the "demo" was amazing. Real-life trial? Really not worth the effort of even loading up a trial app. Abandoned the idea with a matter of minutes.
Speech recognition really has a LONG way to go, but people somehow ignore the simplest of failures from it, and I'm not sure tying it into every product is at all a sensible idea, accessibility-wise, either. For a start, almost NOTHING understands my voice, no matter how careful I am. It would literally lock me out of services if we all start going that way.
Though I agree there are uses, heavy use of voice recognition isn't a part of anyone's life that I know. And in fact on those automated cinema lines, from a very limited range of possibilities, most people I know who've tried have just given up and gone online.
A speech recognition project will always be necessary. But tying it into the browser? That's just an creep into things that browsers shouldn't have to contend with at all.
Posted Dec 5, 2017 23:01 UTC (Tue)
by madscientist (subscriber, #16861)
[Link]
Posted Dec 6, 2017 5:33 UTC (Wed)
by Blortuga (guest, #120092)
[Link] (4 responses)
Microphone quality is key. (in addition to the software's recognizer algorithm, the parameters, the model, etc).
And smartphone mics, are of varying quality, with varying amounts of pocket-lint crammed into them. And also: AFAIK; smartphones don't have onboard CPU power capable of doing speech recognition, and they're still mostly sending an encoded sample to a server, where the recognition is done, and the text result is sent back - poor network connections can also cause problems.
But anyway - I do not know why smartphone manufacturers do not step up their game with microphone quality. When you're charging $1000 for hardware, a good quality microphone shouldn't be that hard, considering it's part of the primary function of the device, as a phone.
That's my take on why smartphone voice recognition performance is often so "crappy", 8 or 9 years after it first came out (Siri).
Posted Dec 6, 2017 16:13 UTC (Wed)
by khim (subscriber, #9252)
[Link]
Posted Dec 7, 2017 1:12 UTC (Thu)
by thomasg (guest, #114185)
[Link] (2 responses)
Voice recognition on phones was in fact a thing a decade earlier, when Nokia rolled it out a decade earlier on the 3310 in the year 2000. This was a time when 3G devices did not yet exist, mobile data was limited to at most 64 Kilobits per second, and the voice recognition was done on board with a below 200 MHz ARM7 CPU made by TI (which likely also produced the voice recognition feature, based on their DSPs, though I can't find any solid data about that).
Sorry to go out on a correction-rant on you, it just annoys the hell out of me when history is rewritten, again and again, to paint Apple as the creative minds behind features, when in fact they rarely invented anything and were just very smart in acquiring promising technology and delivering solid products implementing it.
Posted Dec 7, 2017 6:45 UTC (Thu)
by gioele (subscriber, #61675)
[Link] (1 responses)
The 1999 model of the Philips Genie already had voice recognition in multiple EU languages for basic tasks (worked decently) and for contacts (worked decently with first names, it has never matched a surname in my experience).
PS: The first 3 revisions of the Philips Genie had the best phone interface ever made. Nokia took years to catch up with that.
Posted Dec 7, 2017 17:06 UTC (Thu)
by thomasg (guest, #114185)
[Link]
Posted Dec 4, 2017 20:29 UTC (Mon)
by SEJeff (guest, #51588)
[Link]
Posted Dec 5, 2017 5:18 UTC (Tue)
by pabs (subscriber, #43278)
[Link] (3 responses)
Posted Dec 5, 2017 7:48 UTC (Tue)
by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Dec 5, 2017 10:15 UTC (Tue)
by eru (subscriber, #2753)
[Link] (1 responses)
Maybe in English. Voxforge seems to support several other languages as well. (But not mine, it seems.)
Posted Dec 5, 2017 10:19 UTC (Tue)
by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
[Link]
I was excited that it had Russian support, but it turns out that there is barely any data there. Not useful for AI training, for Russian it's still better to use public domain movies from USSR with subtitles.
Posted Dec 5, 2017 15:36 UTC (Tue)
by smurf (subscriber, #17840)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Dec 5, 2017 22:23 UTC (Tue)
by edgewood (subscriber, #1123)
[Link]
Mozilla releases its speech-recognition system
Mozilla releases its speech-recognition system
Mozilla releases its speech-recognition system
Mozilla releases its speech-recognition system
Mozilla releases its speech-recognition system
Mozilla releases its speech-recognition system
Mozilla releases its speech-recognition system
Mozilla releases its speech-recognition system
Mozilla releases its speech-recognition system
Mozilla releases its speech-recognition system
Mozilla releases its speech-recognition system
Vice is a monster of so frightful mien
As to be hated needs but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.
Mozilla releases its speech-recognition system
Mozilla releases its speech-recognition system
Mozilla releases its speech-recognition system
Mozilla releases its speech-recognition system
Mozilla releases its speech-recognition system
Mozilla releases its speech-recognition system
Mozilla releases its speech-recognition system
Mozilla releases its speech-recognition system
Mozilla releases its speech-recognition system
Would be nice to have bug citations instead of bellyaching
Not on mine, it doesn't.
Would be nice to have bug citations instead of bellyaching
Would be nice to have bug citations instead of bellyaching
Would be nice to have bug citations instead of bellyaching
Would be nice to have bug citations instead of bellyaching
Would be nice to have bug citations instead of bellyaching
Would be nice to have bug citations instead of bellyaching
Mozilla releases its speech-recognition system
Mozilla releases its speech-recognition system
Mozilla releases its speech-recognition system
Mozilla releases its speech-recognition system
Mozilla releases its speech-recognition system
Mozilla releases its speech-recognition system
Mozilla releases its speech-recognition system
Mozilla releases its speech-recognition system
Mozilla releases its speech-recognition system
Mozilla releases its speech-recognition system
But anyway - I do not know why smartphone manufacturers do not step up their game with microphone quality.
Because that's not what users demand?
When you're charging $1000 for hardware, a good quality microphone shouldn't be that hard, considering it's part of the primary function of the device, as a phone.
Device whose primary function is voice today are sold for $30 if not for $15. Not much you could do to microphone quality if your whole device in that price range.
$1000 devices have NEVER had voice as their "primary function". 10 years ago that were SMS, today it's WhatsApp and camera, but not voice.
And even if they DO work on voice all enhancements are not in quality of sound but in the ability to use it when someone nearby is speaking loudly, etc. Thus 2-3 "ambient" mics and clever algorithms, not high-quality mics...
Mozilla releases its speech-recognition system
It's also a stretch to call it the first smartphone based voice recognition, there have been others before that; though they usually weren't remotely as good - but also didn't have the tens of millions of dollars DARPA funding that enabled the SRI (that's where the name Siri comes from) to develop it.
Apple was just quick enough to purchase SRI before they released their android app.
Mozilla releases its speech-recognition system
Mozilla releases its speech-recognition system
Thanks!
Mozilla releases its speech-recognition system
Mozilla releases its speech-recognition system
Mozilla releases its speech-recognition system
Because Mozilla now has at least an order of magnitude more data than Voxforge?
Mozilla releases its speech-recognition system
Mozilla releases its speech-recognition system
Mozilla releases its speech-recognition system
If you have to ask, it's English only.
Mozilla releases its speech-recognition system