Leaked video shows what’s next with Bing voice search

By Sam Sabri
last updated

Apple has Siri, Google has Google Now, and Microsoft has a promise. While we wait for a true personal assistant on Windows Phone, we can look forward to this leaked video of how voice searches might work on Bing in the near future.

Microsoft's Tellme technology has been integrated with Windows Phone since the beginning. It’s gotten better over time too, slowly adding new features like text-to-speech for text messages. A ‘leaked’ video from TechFest earlier shows off some new features and improvements to come for the speech recognition technology. The video below compares two Windows Phone running a custom Bing app. The one on the left targets the old speech recognition backend, while the one on the right reveals the newer system.

  • New system is faster. Time difference of 1.01 seconds vs .56 seconds for when he stopped talking to when the results came back.
  • Faster results enable results to stream as you speak
  • Accuracy has improved when noise is introduced to the environment

An interesting note a few sites have glossed over. In the video above, the phone on the right is using the newer backend system for speech recognition but it’s running on older data center hardware. Recently they’ve updated the hardware for the current speech recognition backend. If the old backend was running on the same hardware as the newer system, the same search would actually take 1.51 seconds. So if you’ve been noticing faster results when using Bing voice search, now you know why. When we they finally put the newer backend in main use on the new hardware, results should be slightly faster than in the video.

Microsoft Research has been the driving force behind these improvements, especially in the area of improving accuracy. By basing the speech recognition off of deep-neural-network (DNN) algorithms, they’re able to achieve a 10-20 percent improvement in error reduction and use 30 percent less processing time. DNN also allows these improvements without needing the user to adapt. The long term goal is to make a product that allows for out of the box speech recognition without forcing the user to adapt to the product. If you want to read more about Microsoft Research and their deep-neural-network technology, go here (opens in new tab).

We don’t have any timetable for when we can start seeing the newer Bing voice search; your guess is as good as ours. But if I was to make a wager, I'd probably bet on its inclusion in the next big update – maybe Blue.

Source: MSFT Kitchen, Via: The Verge

36 Comments
  • Nice..
  • Windows MOBILE? FTW!! 
  • Two red ones, I'm in love. Lumia 920 that is.
  • Get more language support first instead. And btw, if I installed English voice for tellme to test this voice stuff out. How do I delete it?
  • Agreed there, Microsoft it too much focusing on new things and improving it while 9/10th of the world can't even use it.. :-/
  • The "sound engineers" will always keep working on the algorithms. I think getting languages into the service would be a different group of engineers/developers/translators. That's my guess anyway. It seems like a whole other area of work.
  • Think you'll have to factory reset it to get rid of it.
    Would indeed been nice to see it in other languages, as it is now it's just a gimmick and completely useless.
    It's hilariously funny though, I tried with voice command 'Call wife', but what it did was launching a internet search for Barack Obama...
  • I got a better idea. Learn English. Can't hurt.
  • Yes indeed, I got very fast search results on HD7 too.
  • I'll admit the voice stuff seemed like a gimmick at first, but I do find it handy for quick searches when I'm at home and don't feel like typing out an unfamiliar word. It would be great for texting, except for 2 problems: 1)punctuation, as in how do you tell it to insert a question mark, period, etc; and 2) it would be great if I could type what I want and then hit the voice button to add to the already-typed text message. Currently it erases what I had typed and makes me start from scratch using voice.
  • ^^THIS!!
  • You can say "add more" to add
  • I thin he is referring to adding voice to already typed text not add to current voice text.
  • why don't our Surface tablets have this? I still can't understand that one.
  • Endorsed.
  • @RyanAMG: Exactly. I start a text with typing then decide "ah screw it I'll polish this off with mah sexy voice." But it's a no-go, I can't add to a typed message with voice without erasing what was typed. :(
  • Awesome, I'm excited to make use of it.
  • Speed is great, but accuracy is awesome.  One of the annoyances I have is:
    having my phone set up for hands free use while driving and a text message coming in, because of the noise from the outside (air, tires, loud vehicle), I can't get Bing/Tellme to understand what I am saying when I try to repond to the text message. 
     
    This will be a much needed improvement.
     
    Now what I want is this: http://youtu.be/iB6pWs46GY8 but I don't see it happening anytime as Microsoft is slow to roll this stuff out. 
     
  • My 920 no longer gives me the option to reply to txts using speech. Just "Call back" or "I'm done". I can't figure out why... anyone know??
  • SAY WHUT?? I'm using 7.8.  Don't tell me Windows Phone 8 lost that option too!!!?
  • Just take my $$ !!!!
  • it would be an innovation if the xbox avatar could have been used in tellme with good lips movements and animations while having a chat with us
  • Or Clippy
  • ...doh messed up comment here
  • Poor Mr. Clippy, I miss that guy for whenever I write research papers.  He was the only one that listened to my frustration and did not care if I blurted out curse words against my professors while writing. 
  • Endorsed.
  • LOL
  • i had totally forgot about clippy.....oh how i miss those good ol' ms days.....
  • THIS IS AWESOME!!!
  • They better patent that before you know who says (~ 2 years from now) that they created it, rename it and call it magical. This is sad but true nowadays.
  • The real time text population is the one thing I missed from Android phone. Its great to see it pop up as you speak as opposed to being disappointed after you're finished.
  • For the purposes that I use speech-to-text for, this feature on Windows Phone is close to perfect for me. The accuracy that I receive when using it to dictate text message, which I do frequently when driving, is really awesome. I've also used it while cycling on three different occasions and received a perfect conversion, even with the associated wind noise that's generated when I'm doing 15 mph outdoors on a bicycle.
    The complaints that other users have, re language support and ability to add to a txt that was started with the keyboard, are reasonable and should be addressed quickly by Microsoft. Based on the viscous pace at which Microsoft moves however, I doubt we'll see any real innovation added to speech-to-text on Windows Phone anytime soon.
  • What if the real time text population comes with Blue? :-)
  • This really should be an announcement for their customers. Keeping this seemingly on the down low doesn't help building the brand! Going public and making an announcement though, would.
  • I already get excellent recognitions rates, so I'm note sure where they're gogin to get 10-15% better results from this never mind the addition advances mentioned in the video.
    10 x better than the GS3 used to be.
  • Why wait for MS (to buy the solution from ??) when there's Maluuba!  I've been using Maluuba for almost a month and have smoked Siri everytime one of my Apple friends try to step up.