Playback, listen, type, rewind, listen, pause, correct what you just typed, resume, listen, type more, rewind, listen, pause, correct, etc. — the exercise goes on and on. The simple yet tedious act of transcribing your audio recording from an interview or press conference. Now, imagine plugging your digital audio recorder into a USB port on your computer and having a software program automatically transcribe the file. I predict the fantasy is soon to become reality.
Google is making a voice recognition application available to iPhone users that is only a few steps away from being turned into a tool that I think will go from being only a journalist’s dream to a reality. Right now this software is being used by iPhones to locate services such as restaurants simply by asking “Where is the closest pizza restaurant?” According to a researcher at Carnegie Mellon quoted by The New York Times today, the technology is going to advance rapidly in the next three to six months. And according to the same story:
Several weeks ago Adobe added voice recognition technology developed by Autonomy, a British firm, to its Creative Suite software, allowing it to generate transcripts of video and audio recordings with a high degree of accuracy.
And there you have it: the ability to have your digital audio file of an interview automatically transcribed for you by voice recognition software. Yes, there is some software out there now that can do something similar, but it is far from foolproof and not worth the effort to train the software. But I wouldn’t be surprised if Google or Adobe come up with something soon that becomes a regular part of the journalist’s toolbox. What I don’t know is how good the Adobe feature already is. If anyone has some insight, please share!
Inside CMA 