Misconceptions
Speech does not work.
It’s true that speech recognition is still not perfect in noisy environments. It’s also true that speech recognition has had bad publicity because badly designed solutions.
Things have changed …
The world has changed since Wildfire, the first virtual assistant software introduced in the late 90’s. Speech recognition has improved considerably, processor power grew many folds, the telephone network embraced Internet and business data became more accessible securely on the Web.
Excendia exploits these technological developments and others to present a new generation of speech-enabled virtual assistants. In addition, Excendia introduced many innovative concepts to improve the human-machine interactions. One of which is Excendia’s ability to adapt its speech interface to the user’s learning curve. First-time users get a directed dialog while experienced ones have the possibility to use almost natural language commands.
On another front, Excendia enables phonetic name pronunciation tuning to improve recognition of users and contacts with foreign names. Speech is not designed to replace smart phones or laptops. It complements them. Speech is very helpful when you need it for your safety, productivity or customer service.
Data Security and Confidentiality Could be Compromised
Companies are very protective of their security and confidentiality of their corporate data. CIOs and IT administrators implement efficient security mechanisms to protect the confidentiality and integrity of e-mails and other business information traveling on the Internet. Excendia is sensitive to these concerns and has taken every measure reasonably possible to protect and ensure the privacy of its subscribers’ information:
- Any password or PIN received is instantly encrypted prior to any transmission over the Internet. We use industry-standard encryption methods.
- Sensitive information such as passwords and PINs are accessed only by computer programs and only while in memory during a session.
Limited Number of Contacts
Your voice directory can contain several hundred contacts but its capacity is not unlimited. That is because when you are driving, you only communicate with some of your contacts. Name recognition works better with shorter lists of names. So if like many people you have hundreds of contacts, you shouldn’t put all of them in your voice directory, but only the ones you often call or send emails to from your car or your office.