Voice to Text - Text to Voice - Not Ready for Primetime, Yet
I have an account with Google Voice. A really cool service that used to be called Grand Central. While it’s not yet open to the public, it will be soon.
You really should check it out as it has some really cool features.
Well, Google has just introduced a transcription service for your voice mails. They will even email you a text copy of what they think your voicemail says. Bottom line, their transcription service just plain sucks. My last message from their service was so garbled as to hardly be understandable. The voice message itself was perfectly clear to me. As I wrote, not yet ready for prime time IMO.
It just so happens I just today had the pleasure of getting my first text to voice message. Somebody thought it would be cool to be able to send a text message to someone via a call. Not a good idea as far as I am concerned. Having a computer first tell you that you have a “Verizon text to voice message” and then have a computer read you the message is not a pleasant experience, at all. The voice had the most irritating quality. It was so bad that I deleted the message (ironically, I got it in my voicemail) and hated the experience.
So, while the voice to text is just not ready, as least as far as Google voice is concerned, I happen to think that text to voice is just a bad idea.
