Service transcribes audio messages into e-mails for skimming
09:13 AM CST on Friday, February 23, 2007
Listening to voice mail messages can get awfully tedious.
Thankfully, you can now read them instead.
A new service from a company called SimulScribe automatically
transcribes voice messages left for you into text, then e-mails you the
transcribed message.
The transcriptions can either be
sent to your regular e-mail address or forwarded to a cellphone or
BlackBerry device.
It's a great concept for several reasons:
•You can glance through all your messages simultaneously, rather than
having to listen to each one sequentially.
•With your
messages stored as regular text, they are archived and searchable
through any regular desktop search engine.
•No need to take notes.
This is especially helpful if you're using your cellphone or BlackBerry
on the road, and the message contains a name or phone number you need
to record.
But SimulScribe isn't flawless.
The voice recognition software that transcribes your audio messages
into text can get tripped up on unusual words or names.
This issue is mitigated somewhat because your e-mails include the actual audio message as an attachment.
So if the text looks a little funny, you can verify it by listening to the WAV file.
While that might sound clunky, it's still more convenient than regular voice mail.
The other issue is that it takes a little longer to get your messages
as text files than if you just use regular voice mail.
The difference is no more than a couple minutes, though.
So unless you're expecting a life-or-death message, it's not a big deal.
Setting up the service is fairly straightforward. Once you sign up
($9.95 a month for 40 messages, 25 cents a message after that), you
assign an e-mail address and other contact info to your account.
So, for example, I tried a demo account linked to my work e-mail. I
then added my Sprint cellphone number to the account.
That way, the text files would be sent both as an e-mail and a text
message. The e-mails worked without a hitch.
I left
myself a couple messages to test the service. While some of the
transcriptions were a little off, the audio files made it easy to
figure out what had been lost in translation.
The text messages were a little more troublesome.
Text messages are limited to a pretty small size on my phone, so any
voice mails longer than a sentence generally got cut off. You also
don't get the attached audio file.
If you really want to
use SimulScribe with a mobile device, you'll probably be better off
marrying it to a BlackBerry or other smart phone that can handle
regular e-mail.
Still, this is a great technology, and it
would be great to see telephone companies offering this as a standard
service when you sign up for a phone line.
Pros: Makes
voice mail much more manageable. Since a computer handles the
transcription, you don't have to worry that someone is listening to
your messages.
Cons: The transcription isn't
always accurate, and results are best when the person leaving the
message speaks slowly and clearly. Many cellphones aren't well suited
to the service.
Bottom line: You won't ever want to listen to a voice mail again.
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