Latest Podcast



Featured Articles

Ofcom says mobile contracts should ditch inflation-related price rises

Ofcom says mobile contracts should ditch inflation-related price rises

UK telecoms regulator Ofcom wants to ban inflation-related rises in phone and broadband contracts. Instead, it says any potential mid-contract price rises should be set out in pounds and pence.
Author: The Fonecast
0 Comments
Article rating: No rating

Global smartphone market is set for recovery, says new forecast

A new forecast from research specialists Canalys shows the smartphone market is set to recover next year. Worldwide shipments declined by 12% last year but that decline is expected to slow to 5% this year.
Author: The Fonecast
0 Comments
Article rating: No rating
Vodafone and Three plan to merge their UK businesses

Vodafone and Three plan to merge their UK businesses

New Hutchison/Vodafone network would be biggest UK operator

Vodafone Group plc and CK Hutchison Group Telecom Holdings Limited have agreed to combine their UK telecommunication businesses, respectively Vodafone UK and Three UK. The merger will create a large new network operator to compete with Virgin Media O2 and EE.
Author: The Fonecast
0 Comments
Article rating: No rating

UK mobile payment service Paym to close in March 2023

UK mobile payment service Paym will close on 7th March 2023. The service, which allowed users to make and receive payments using their mobile phone numbers, was launched in 2014.
Author: The Fonecast
0 Comments
Article rating: No rating
Qualcomm legal action moves forward in the UK

Qualcomm legal action moves forward in the UK

Which? seeks payout for Samsung and Apple smartphone owners

Consumer protection organisation Which? has been given permission by the UK's Competition Appeal Tribunal to represent Apple and Samsung smartphone buyers in a legal case against chip manufacturer Qualcomm.
Author: The Fonecast
0 Comments
Article rating: No rating
RSS

Opinion Articles

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

SpinVox visit offers a few clues about the technology

Mark Bridge writes:

So, dear reader, let’s start at the beginning. Once upon a time, a mere five years ago, there was SpinVox. A company created with help from entrepreneur Christina Domecq – whose surname offers a clue to her family’s background – and Daniel Doulton, the man behind the Psion series 5. (Sherry and portable computers; two of my favourite products. But I digress).

The company’s promise was simple: to turn voicemail messages into SMS text messages.

As I see it, they created a service that was designed to evolve as technology did. My assumption is that pretty much every message would be heard by human operators in the early days – but as voice-to-text translation improved, more and more messages would be handled by computers.

Of course, the company didn’t want its customers to think their messages were being heard by call centre staff. That's the job of Vodafone’s Respond Plus service. So it talked about messages only being heard by humans when the technology wasn’t able to decipher them… without mentioning that its technology really didn’t understand that much.

Some people believed this meant that most voice messages were turned into SMS by computers. Some didn’t.

And then, one foul day, mocoNews interviewed Christina Domecq and asked about that conversion process. They said “I assumed the service worked purely by algorithm, but apparently there’s a lot of human transcription”. Next, before you knew it, Rory Cellan-Jones from the BBC was also on the case. People started talking about data protection and finances as well.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, SpinVox issued a couple of statements in an attempt to defuse the situation and then - when the BBC didn't go away quietly - invited a crowd of techy people to see what was happening. They weren’t allowed to record anything, just to watch, ask questions and play with the technology.

That visit took place yesterday. I’d have loved to have been there but I’m on holiday this week and didn’t get an invitation anyway. Not that I wouldn’t mind a visit next time. But I digress. Again.

The media response – which, I’m sure is the bit you’re interested in – is what I’d describe as “towards the negative end of mixed”. It looks like those techy people didn’t get any answers to the questions that had been bothering them. The big one is “What percentage of calls are handled by operators?” – and SpinVox says it’s commercially sensitive.

Milo Yiannopoulos from TechCrunch left a test message and was surprised to discover that “the agent in the room had to listen to and manually type the entire message, from beginning to end”. Not a single word was apparently translated by the computer system, although company CIO Rob Wheatley had successfully demonstrated SpinVox’s speech-to-text technology earlier in the day. In fact, The Register pointed out that all of the day’s test messages except Rob Wheatley’s demo required manual interpretation “pretty much in their entirety”. And that’s to say nothing of the awkward financial questions they wanted answered.

Which, in summary, means we’ve probably not seen the last SpinVox headline this year – or even this month.

Print
Author: The Fonecast
5 Comments
Rate this article:
No rating

Categories: OpinionNumber of views: 12061

Tags:

5 comments on article "SpinVox visit offers a few clues about the technology"

0
0
Avatar image

Steorm

8/6/2009 7:05 AM

Your narrative provides a pretty good summary, but what led to the MocoNews interview a couple weeks ago was that the company, which had raised $200m, was asking employees to take stock instead of salary because it was running out of cash.

It was the abiility to raise so much money that made Christina Domecq and SpinVox so famous in the first place. Exactly like her disasterous experience a few years earlier in the US where should got national press coverage for raising funds to start a new business, only to see it crash into bankruptcy. www.allbusiness.com/government/government-bodies-offices-law-courts-tribunals/10602370-1.html


0
0
Avatar image

Mark

8/6/2009 7:05 AM

Ben & Dan from The Really Mobile Project have just published a report on their visit. They say "The presentation and demo made no attempt to address the most serious allegations against SpinVox", "The demo, even under controlled circumstances, failed to demonstrate anything more than very basic automated transcription"and "We are amazed they believed this demonstration would support their claims and even more amazed they chose only to focus on the technical". thereallymobileproject.com/2009/08/spinvox-demo-day/


0
0
Avatar image

Mark

8/9/2009 10:51 AM

James Middleton from telecoms.com was in the second group of attendees: www.telecoms.com/13439/spinvox-behind-the-spin
He ends his report "I’ve come away feeling that SpinVox is much more reliant on humans than it would have you believe, and if that is the case, I have doubts as to whether it has a scalable and cost effective business model".


0
0
Avatar image

Mark

8/10/2009 3:56 PM

The BBC reports on a "dossier alleging financial irregularities", adding "It is thought the company has called in accounting consultants and lawyers to investigate the allegations".
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8193263.stm


0
0
Avatar image

The Fonecast

8/19/2009 8:49 AM

The BBC's Rory Cellan-Jones sums up his recent thoughts about SpinVox: www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2009/08/spinvox_why_it_matters.html

Leave a comment

This form collects your name, email, IP address and content so that we can keep track of the comments placed on the website. For more info check our Privacy Policy and Terms Of Use where you will get more info on where, how and why we store your data.
Add comment

Recent Podcasts

Reviewing our 2015 mobile industry predictions... and looking forward to 2016

Podcast - 15th January 2016

Iain Graham, James Rosewell and Mark Bridge return to review their mobile industry predictions from last year. Which mergers, partnerships and developments did they forecast correctly... and which didn’t work out as planned?

Later in the programme, the team anticipates some of the topics that will be hitting the headlines during 2016.

Author: The Fonecast
0 Comments
Article rating: No rating

Podcast from Mobile World Congress 2015

Podcast - 6th March 2015

Mark Bridge learns about the mobile technology trends at Mobile World Congress 2015 by chatting to James Rosewell of 51Degrees, Dr Kevin Curran from the IEEE and Chris Millington of Doro.

They talk about wearable devices, wireless charging, mobile operating systems and much more... including some of their favourite products from the exhibition.

Author: The Fonecast
0 Comments
Article rating: No rating

Looking back at February: from security scares to multiple MVNOs

Podcast - 27th February 2015

We're taking a look back at the biggest mobile industry news stories from February 2015, including allegations that the UK's security service tried to breach SIM card security by hacking into one of the world's biggest SIM producers.

We also talk about the planned BT and EE merger, the creation of two new UK virtual networks, some acquisitions in the mobile payment arena and a new Ubuntu smartphone.

Author: The Fonecast
0 Comments
Article rating: No rating

Interview with Chris Millington of Doro about mobile retailing, wearables and technology for older consumers

Podcast - 24th February 2015

In today's programme Mark Bridge talks to Chris Millington, who's Managing Director for Doro UK and Ireland.

They discuss the state of mobile retailing in the UK, the future of wearable devices and - as you might expect - smartphones for seniors.

Author: The Fonecast
0 Comments
Article rating: No rating

A month of mobile: O2 counts on 3, Microsoft counts to 10 and Apple counts its profits

Podcast - 30th January 2015

We're back with a month of mobile industry news, including takeover talks and takeover rumours. O2 and Three are said to be discussing a merger... but is there any truth in the suggestions that BlackBerry could be up for grabs?

We also discuss Apple's record-breaking quarterly figures, the highlights of CES and the launch of Microsoft Windows 10, as well as saying farewell to the current version of Google Glass.

Author: The Fonecast
0 Comments
Article rating: No rating
RSS
1345678910Last

Follow thefonecast.com

Twitter @TheFonecast RSS podcast feed
Find us on Facebook Subscribe free via iTunes

Archive Calendar

«March 2024»
MonTueWedThuFriSatSun
26272829123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
25262728293031
1234567

Archive

Terms Of Use | Privacy Statement