[NTLK] iPhone speach recognition available

[Larry Yaeger]

I don't think Dragon is up to anything nefarious.  They're just trying to increase recognition accuracy, and their privacy policy makes it clear that only minimal data is acquired and it is never used in any way other than recognition.

All decent recognition, handwriting or speech, requires a good model of the text being recognized--a context model for deciding between multiple, alternative hypotheses.  Proper names of people and places are the hardest thing to provide to such a model, simply because there are so many of them.  You can have a 100K word list and cover most anything people will write or say, except for names.  But a 100K name list doesn't scratch the surface of proper names.  It makes good sense for them to be using your contact names to recognize your spoken contacts.

Given their privacy policy, I wouldn't worry too much about this.

- larryy

At 11:14 PM +0100 12/8/09, paolo savonuzzi wrote:
>... all I see on their site is:
>
>"Privacy Policy
>We understand our users' privacy rights and concerns and assure you that data uploaded through our Dragon Dictation application will not be used in any way aside from enhancing your experience with the application. Dragon Dictation application does upload a user's contact names only (no phone numbers, email addresses, etc.) The data is used to optimize recognition when a user speaks a name while dictating text messages and emails. Search queries and dictation requests are transcribed by fully automated speech recognition software, without the use of humans. We ensure data integrity and security. All speech recognition requests and associated data are processed in data centers in the U.S. that adhere to stringent security and privacy standards; these are the same standards that we use for processing sensitive information in other areas of our business."
>
>
>could you, please, post a link to the EULA you mentioned?
>
>thnx :-)
>--
>paolo
>
>
>
>
>On 08/dic/2009, at 20.13, Dennis B. Swaney wrote:
>
>> Stay away from this app if you or your contacts value privacy. Buried in
>> the EULA is a statement that your address book/contacts will be uploaded
>> to the vendor's servers AND, according to Nuance's website, become their
>> property. Apple needs to pull this app and slap Nuance down hard!
>>
>>  --
>> Sincerely,
>> Dennis B. Swaney
>
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