Update | Sichuan accent? Speak into a smartphone, and let iFlytek convert it into text in no time
China’s iFlytek, the foremost provider of advanced speech recognition technology in the country, aims to conquer overseas markets after CES debut
Sending a message on your smartphone can be hard to do in the middle of Beijing’s freezing winter, according to 32-year-old resident Phoenix Zhang.
“It’s like torture replying to messages outdoors with your bare hands exposed in this weather, especially when you can’t respond in just a few words,” she said.
So whenever Zhang needs to send a message, she opens an app called iFlytek Input, taps an icon that looks like a microphone and starts talking.
The app can swiftly transform her voice message into clear text form, including the typical mix of English words in Chinese-language sentences that reflect the talking style of young urban professionals who work for multinational companies in China.
Zhang is among an estimated 500 million people across the country who depend on the free-to-use app, which was launched in 2010 by Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) company iFlytek, to send messages while driving and doing other chores, or communicate with people who speak a different language or dialect.