Facebook is now testing a feature on its Messenger app that can automatically transcribe audio clips you send and receive. Available for selected Facebook Messenger accounts, the new feature will send the audio clip out along with a transcribed text right below.
If you’ve ever been stuck in a very quiet meeting room or an extremely noisy environment where you can’t listen to a voice message, this tool would come in extremely handy. David Marcus, the new Vice President of Messaging Products at Facebook (former VP and general manager of PayPal), recently posted onto his Facebook account saying that they are currently having a small test on the feature, which is only available to a handful of Facebook accounts. If successful, it might be rolled out widely.
If you’re one of the lucky few, unless you opt out of the auto-transcribing feature, when you send or receive a voice message, Messenger will include the transcribed text right below. Messenger will also tell users that it is an auto-created text so when it fails to transcribe properly, at least the receiver will know that something went wrong and listen in instead.
Transcribing is not an easy task of course; even Google who has a similar feature with Google Voice still isn’t perfect, which is probably why Facebook wants to test it out first before rolling out to the mass. Auto transcribing on Facebook Messenger has already started rolling out since two days ago, anyone here lucky enough to be selected by Facebook?
(Source: David Marcus via: The Verge)
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