From Broadcast Newsroom, BBN Technologies just released version 2.0 of its AVOKE STX speech-to-text software. According to BBN, this new version improves the relevance of multimedia search results by transforming audio into searchable text with unprecedented accuracy. Applications include enterprise search, business and government intelligence, consumer search, audio mining, video search, broadcast monitoring, and multimedia asset management.
BBN says AVOKE STX 2.0 separates speech from non-speech, such as music or laughter, and then processes the speech to identify additional characteristics. This information is captured, tagged with metadata, and indexed in an XML format for use by standard search engines or technology. Because each word in the metadata is time-stamped, users can navigate easily to any point in the transcript, listen to the original audio, or watch the corresponding video.
BBN’s legacy extends to playing a key role in pioneering the development of the ARPANET, the forerunner of the Internet. BBN supports both commercial and government clients. Its AVOKE speech technology translates Arabic and Chinese with additional foreign languages planned.