Very broadly speaking, these are the steps computers go through as they learn to understand speech:
A few challenges that computers face as they are learning:
There are many other challenges that computers face, and many smart developers out there creating solutions to aid for faster processing. One example is Cypher, whose software isolates the speaker’s voice and ignores everything else. As machine learning and natural language processing continues to move forward, the applications and uses for voice will continue to grow.
The Future of Voice
The user experience of call-and-response interaction is fairly predictable at this point and current voice technology in Siri, Alexa, Google, etc. is optimized for that experience. For a variety of reasons, not the least of which is privacy, the voice assistant creators have employed this pattern as it provides a time window for how long the device listens to the consumer before it begins to search for the answer. This window is typically around 10–15 seconds. As the applications listens, it searches its preferred database to generate an answer or maps the right trigger to produce the desired reaction (such as turning off your lights).
Novel Effect was conceived as a platform that would break that mold and provide users with a way to enhance everyday experiences with their voice. The underlying premise was that as voice becomes more integral in how users engage with technology, the users’ expectations for what that technology can do will grow exponentially.
Our flagship mobile app was designed with children’s picture books in mind. Books were important parts of my and Melissa’s childhoods, and we wanted to ensure that they would be a part of our daughter’s as well, even with the competition they would face from screens and devices.
Hence, Novel Effect… the first-of-its-kind platform to use screen-free technology to blend existing print books with rich interactive content. As the app runs in the background, enveloping the reader in a sensory immersive experience, the focus remains on the physical book.
Reading a typical picture book aloud usually takes at least 10 minutes. This presented a challenge for launching on the existing voice assistants due to their time restraints. Our solution was to launch our platform as an app.
As we also take privacy very seriously, we designed the app to have the voice processing take place locally. What this means is that when a user accesses a particular soundscape in our app, it is downloaded locally to their device, which means that even though the app is listening through the whole story, that audio data does not have to be passed to the cloud to process the voice.
We were able to optimize the voice recognition for all kinds of voice speeds, accents, and pitches. Our platform works just as well for a child reading to her dad as it does for a dad reading to his daughter. I know this from firsthand experience as my three-year-old daughter Eleanor loves to read to me and trigger the music and sound effects with Novel Effect.
Best of all, the app is incredibly simple to use. A parent, teacher, or caregiver simply opens the app, searches for the book they are about to read, selects that tile in our app, and hits play. Then they put the device aside and start reading the print book with their child. As they read, our app is listening for the specific words and phrases in the text and syncing background music, sound effects, and character voices in real time.
Having developed this platform in app form allowed us to perfect our voice recognition algorithms and enables us to grow exponentially in the future. With planned product releases in Android and a web-based version in development, we believe we are changing the way users will interact with voice technology in the very near future.
We are really excited about the possibilities that our voice recognition system has unlocked to create unique and engaging experiences. All forms of media, from books, to plays, to movies, to games can be enhanced through voice interaction.
Seeing the faces of kids and adults light up as they realize Novel Effect is reacting to their voices and words is amazing. Their surprise quickly turns to excitement as they continue to read and “hear” and see what happens next, whether it’s a story they’ve never read before or one they know well. Everyone should feel this joy when reading and our ultimate ambition is to make that happen for every child . . . and for every child at heart!
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