PRODUCT REVIEW: Podcasts Converted to Text

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DOES PODCASTING ACTUALLY MATTER?
Journalists vs. Blogger War
Podcast Information and How To AudioBlog by Phone, and RSS Instructions.
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PRODUCT REVIEW: Podcasts Converted to Text
- Nov 17, 2005 09:42 PM (AP Online)
By BRIAN BERGSTEIN AP Technology Writer


BOSTON (AP) -- Suddenly the universe of downloadable audio files known as
podcasts seems as enormous as the Internet. Name a topic _ from the weather
in Asuncion to the ZigBee wireless technology _ and there is a podcast about
it.

But while the Internet's vastness is accessible because of deep-probing
search engines, comparably authoritative services for podcasts and other
multimedia haven't really emerged.

That's because search programs are primed to catalog text. When they
encounter an audio or video file, generally they determine the contents by
reading the titles and other descriptive tags, known as "metadata," that
creators voluntarily add.

It's useful, but much like examining only the first few lines of a Web site.
Reading the whole thing is a lot better.

With that in mind, a few companies are trying to make search engines
actually listen to big audio and video files. From there, speech-to-text
software can generate written transcripts, which are searched in addition to
metadata.

Perhaps best known has been Blinkx Inc., an information-management startup
that gets its speech-to-text software from Autonomy Corp.

Now comes BBN Technologies Inc., a defense contractor that developed
elements of the Internet. After tinkering with speech-to-text programs it
created for U.S. intelligence services, BBN has produced Podzinger, a Web
service that mines the content of podcasts.

A third service, Podscope, from a broadcast-monitoring company called TV
Eyes Inc., performs a similar trick, but with a twist. CEO David Ives says
Podscope uses some voice-recognition technology but mainly scans for
phonemes _ the individual sounds that make up syllables _ rather than full
words.
...

     - http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=53272500


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