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| Microsoft launches Group Transcribe for transcribing meetings |
Microsoft's in-house incubator, Microsoft Garage, has launched the new Group Transcribe app, which provides a different perspective on how meetings work.
Group Transcribe meeting transcription has been redesigned as a more collaborative process, as anyone can record the meeting on their own devices at the same time to improve accuracy.
It also offers simultaneous oral translations in more than 80 different languages.
To use the app, a person must first start a meeting on their own device and then invite other meeting participants via Bluetooth, QR code, or shared link.
After the other participants join the meeting and start the meeting, everyone can see the text in real time on their device.
The app is powered by AI voice and speech technology and can be reproduced with higher precision and speaker customization based on the amount of speech captured by each phone's microphone in the meeting.
By comparing a person's speech level, the cloud attempts to determine which device is closest to the speaker and the language they prefer.
This means that the speakers can also be precisely categorized within the app. This can present a challenge to other transcription apps that only one person has logged into.
If attendees want to speak their own language, the app can also provide subtitles for other people's devices in their own language.
Group Transcribe is designed with accessibility in mind, according to Microsoft, because deaf, inaudible, and non-native speakers of their native languages have full access to meetings.
The app itself has been created by Microsoft employees who collectively speak more than a dozen different languages and dialects.
Like most cloud-based copy services, the app should not be used for overly confidential meetings.
However, Microsoft has built-in partial data and privacy controls that users can use to determine whether or not to share chat data.
Use a randomly generated identifier (instead of your real name) to send bulk voice and text input data to Microsoft's online voice recognition and translation technology.
Although Microsoft does not keep meeting minutes and recorded recordings, Group Transcribe encourages attendees to contribute recordings so Microsoft can improve its services.
If everyone agrees to attend the meeting, then the company can keep the generated speech text and speech recognition.
By studying data, Microsoft aims to improve speech recognition and speaker mapping over time.
Microsoft said it would remove identities from meeting records by removing long strings of numbers that could represent things (like credit card numbers or phone numbers).
The company stated that users can delete previously shared recordings at any time. Otherwise, it will be stored on encrypted servers for up to two years.