Last month in this space we reported on IndusOS, the 'regional language operating system' which had just introduced a speech to text feature that will shortly be available in leading Indian mobile phone brands. But what about the rest of us? A Bangalore start—Liv.ai —has released a software tool kit otherwise known as Application Programme Interface (API), which enables equipment manufacturers to provide a voice recognition feature in English and eight other Indian languages: Hindi, Punjabi, Kannada, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati and Marathi. The tool can be put in phones, tablets, PCs, TVs, even as a safe communication tool in cars.
Now, users in these languages can speak in their own tongue and have text appear on screen —in the script of that language. Once embedded in a tool like email, it will allow us to speak answers to mail and have them transcribed in any of these 10 languages.
Live.ai was co founded by three graduates from IIT Kharagpur —Subodh Kumar, Sanjeev Kumar and Kishore Mundra —who spent the last three years harnessing Artificial Intelligence for speech and language applications.Some of their early products like Indian language keyboards can be found in Google Play. And they have also created the reverse of their speech recognition engine —a text to speech convertor.
You can try out the speech to text tool for free on their website after selecting any of the eight Indian languages or English. Here is the URL: https://liv.ai/#speech-recog
If you are trying out on a phone, it works very well. We checked out most of the languages.. With a PC, you have to attach a microphone.