Unearthing Information in an Avalanche of Voice Mail

April 30, 2002 | Source: New York Times

AT&T Labs researchers have built a system that allows browsing through voice mail. The ScanMail system uses speech recognition technology to transcribe voice-mail messages so they can be searched on an automated speech recognition server.
Other researchers are developing systems capable of searching audio content on the Internet. Compaq Cambridge Research Laboratory’s SpeechBot spiders the Web for audio files, downloads, and transcribes them. The system has created transcripts for more than 14,000 hours of Web audio.

Other uses of audio searching include intelligence-gathering and call-center automation.