Amazon Buys IVONA Software: Another Chapter in iPad Vs. Kindle War
A few years back Amazon wouldn’t even be considered as being in the same league as Apple, but times have changed. Nowadays, the online retail giant dabbles in consumer electronics and mobile computing, encroaching on what was previously the domain of the late Steve Jobs’ empire. Amazon’s weapon of choice in the coming war was to be its flagship product Kindle, aimed to dethrone the reigning champion, iPad. What Amazon’s Kindle lacked in comparison to its rival has been recently remedied, though, as evidenced by Amazon’s rallying of its troops: a year ago, they acquired YAP, a voice-to-text software similar to Apple’s Siri. And just yesterday, Amazon has announced the purchase of IVONA text-to-speech software company, thus firing the first shot of this war.
To efficiently compete with iPad in all areas, Amazon needed just one more piece of the puzzle; while Apple have Siri – the iOS mobile service that allows to communicate with your device by means of actual voice commands – Amazon previously relied on a text-to-speech function that automatically reads aloud all text on your screen (handy for blind people or on the go). It was neat, but it didn’t sound all that natural and was far from very ergonomic.
Some time back they upgraded it, following their partnership with IVONA, a Polish start-up famous for its extremely high-quality text-to-speech software. IVONA (called IVO originally) develops sophisticated algorithms and packs them into a software package that is capable of reading written texts aloud in 17 languages. What sets it apart from competition is that the resulting computer-generated voice sounds almost human – while that of the competition is barely out of the Stephen Hawking sound-alike zone. And so, no longer content with just renting this amazing software or licensing it, yesterday Amazon announced the decision to buy the company outright, in order to implement its proprietary tech to a greater degree in devices like Kindle Fire. Amazingly (pardon the pun), this has nothing to do with Siri – but everything with Amazon’s idea of a more well-rounded product.
So far, Amazon has been using IVONA’s capabilities in „Text-to-Speech,” „Voice Guide” and „Explore by Touch” services in Kindle Fire, but the trend is to use such services online in a cloud manner, in what is now called „software-as-a-service” model. SAAS model makes one company (owner) run specialized servers with their own patented software, and another (client) – lease the first company’s processing power or specialized software remotely. If you have an image-editing software, for instance, you lease it online by allowing users to access this editor from their own computer via a Web browser. This means that a client’s computer can be as dumb as a small chip embedded in an interactive HD TV or as mobile as a simple smartphone, and yet be capable of editing complex images as if it were a super-fast modern multi-core PC. The advantages of such approach are pretty obvious.
For IVONA this means running their speech recognition and voicing software from a remote server, meeting their client’s needs via an Internet connection. In this case, experts cite reading emails out loud and automating call center functionality as key possibilities. But whatever the future, Amazon has proved once again that it has matured enough to do what Microsoft, Google and Apple had been doing for the last decade: buying unique and innovative start-ups instead of just developing new tech in-house.
For instance, one of the latest languages being recognized and read by IVONA synthetic voice generator was Welsh, a language with only 430 000 fluent speakers globally. It wasn’t done for pure commercial reasons so much as to promote the language and the region – in fact, most of the money needed to develop this language’s text-to-speech functionality in IVONA software came from local government. Even more locally, there’re public transport vehicles in Gdansk (a city in Poland) that use IVONA program to generate voiced transport messages (such as the name of the next stop). This is also financed by local governments for local purposes.
With Amazon now pulling the strings, it’s quite obvious that any new developments at the company will go toward fixing Amazon’s own shortcomings in the text-to-speech area. Those are, for the most part, contained to other languages than English – and that’s where IVONA shines especially, providing absolute best TTS capabilities for Polish, Russian and several other European languages. Too bad it won’t shine anywhere else but around Amazon’s Fire from now on.
iPad vs. Fire:
Putting things into perspective, iPad is and has been a multi-purpose tablet running on Apple’s own operating system since day 1, while Amazon’s Kindle has initially been a very specialized ebook reading device, running on a discrete, closed platform that accepted no new apps or solutions. Amazon has put that particular hurdle behind it 2 years ago, when Kindle Fire was first released. It quickly outsold all the competitors in the tablet market and came in second to iPad, with 7 million devices sold at the end of 2012. The fiery debut was mostly due to an existing recognition of Kindle as a very reliable, really well-crafted and cheap device for reading books. With Fire though, Amazon had ventured into the market of actual computing: colour screen, Web browsing and appstore with games and „cool” apps, all the shebang that iPad had – at lower price, better mobility and speed. Most of the computing is aided remotely by way of a cloud, making Fire progressively faster the faster your connection is. Amazon were also smart in that Kindle Fire (as opposed to previous Kindles) runs on Android 2.3/4.0, making it another soldier in the war between iOS and Android, and opening it enough for people to actually be able to do things their own way (like install their own apps, for instance).
VOCABULARY
to consider – uznać
retail – sprzedaż detaliczna
to dabble in – parać się czymś
to encroach on sth – zająć coś, najechać coś
flagship product – flagowy/sztandarowy produkt
to dethrone – zdetronizować
reigning – rządzący
to remedy sth – zaradzić czemuś
as evidenced by sth – o czym świadczy coś
to rally the troops – zgromadzić wojska
to acquire – nabyć
voice-to-text – programy zamieniające głos ludzki w tekst
to announce – ogłosić
purchase – nabycie
text-to-speech – programy czytające na głos tekst drukowany
to compete – konkurować
device – urządzenie
to rely on – polegać na
on the go – w drodze, w ruchu
neat – fajny, zgrabny
to upgrade – unowocześnić
sophisticated – skomplikowany
to be capable of sth – być zdolnym do czegoś
to set sb apart from sb/sth – wyróżniać kogoś spośrod kogoś/czegoś
sound-alike – imitator dźwięków, ktoś, kto ma podobny głos do sławnej postaci (lub parodiuje taką osobę)
content – zadowolony
amazing – niezwykły
outright – w całości, bezpośrednio
proprietary – własny, wynikający z prawa własności
pardon the pun – wybaczcie mi ten żart
well-rounded – pełny, funkcjonalny
capabilities – zdolności, możliwości
cloud – technologia „chmury” (zdalnego przetwarzania i przechowywania danych)
software-as-a-service (SAAS) – oprogramowanie użytkowane na zasadzie usługi zdalnej (w której całość programu nigdy nie trafia do użytkownika, a operacje są zlecane zdalne z terminalu klienta i wykonywane przez serwer firmy-sprzedawcy usługi)
processing power – moc obliczeniowa
remotely – zdalnie
image-editing – do obróbki grafiki
via – za pośrednictwem
Web browser – przeglądarka internetowa
dumb – głupi
embedded – zagłębiony, wbudowany
complex – skomplikowany
multi-core – wielordzeniowy
advantage – korzyść
speech recognition – rozpoznawanie mowy ludzkiej
to meet sb’s needs – spełniać czyjeś potrzeby
to cite – przytaczać
to automate – zautomatyzować, zrobotyzować
to mature – dorosnąć
in-house – na miejscu, w zakładzie
to found – założyć
to insist – utrzymywać
greenhouse – cieplarnia
to fulfill – spełnić, wypełnić (US)
objective – cel
sheer – zwykły, czysty
fluent – płynny
vehicle – pojazd
to pull the strings – pociągać za sznurki
shortcomings – wady, braki
contained to sth – ograniczony do czegoś, ograniczający się do czegoś
to provide – zapewniać
-by Prochor Aniszczuk
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