Why does Voice-to-Text require an internet connection?

[its_miller_time]

o I didn't know this, but today on my way home, i was sending some messages using the very accurate Voice-to-Text feature on my EVO. well, at one point, it just got stuck at "Processing" for about five minutes and then displayed an error message saying the network is experiencing problems or something along those lines. I didn't think anything of it at the time, and just figured it was a glitch.

Well later on, it got me thinking. I tested, and every time I used the Voice-to-Text, the 3G arrows would go during the processing phase.

So, I did some further tests when I got home and put my phone in Airplane mode and what do you know, Voice-to-Text does not work AT ALL.

Why is this the case?

 

[pwnst_r]

Because it's not your phone that totally does the actual processing. Also, to clarify, yes it does require a data connection for this to work.

Here's a good explanation of how this process works and why your phone couldn't handle that kind of processing power:

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/gadgets/high-tech-gadgets/speech-recognition2.htm

 

[Caitlyn McKenzie]

It has to send the data to Google's servers to process the voice.

It would be extremely difficult for the phone's CPU to process that on its own, and would require a very large sample library to learn from.

Note that this is not like many phones with their voice dialer, as they only need to understand a few specific words, and even then their accuracy can be awful.

 

[PM-Performance]

You really feel it is very accurate? I feel like I need to talk like a robot half the time to get it accurate.

Anyway, yes it contacts googles servers as said above. That is how they edit the curse words too. lol

i got the error a few times also and realized this.

 

[Caitlyn McKenzie]

They don't edit the curse words, they just don't recognize them at all.

Also, no, it's not perfectly accurate, but you have to understand the circumstances. NO voice recognition system, even on the desktop is extremely accurate. Combine that with a much lower quality mic, and compressed audio to work with, it's surprising it understands what it does.

 

[pwnst_r]

It's very very good.

 

[eagle63]

Yeah, I've found the accuracy to be very good as well. Maybe they should think about using the same technology in Google Voice's voicemail transcription...

 

[Kedar]

It is pretty accurate if you know how to talk.
I stopped talking like a robot and started talking like it was a conversation and it was more accurate.

Also, Vlingo, an app that costs $$$, is more accurate but of course it has a price attached to it. Try it out if you're a dedicated voice user.

 

[PM-Performance]

They don't edit the curse words, they just don't recognize them at all.

Have you done any research on this? I think you will be surprised when you do.
Google has edited certain things to not process due to possibly offending people by this app accidentaly miss interpreting certain things.