Google Voice Translate

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

This is too mild for the pit, so here it goes: I have an Android cell and because reception sucks here in the hills of LA I decided to see if Google Voice connected to my wifi would work better. No. So no big deal, I thinks. It was worth a shot. Then I realize that Google Voice has a voice-to-text feature where anyone leaving you a voicemail message, the googleybreinz will automagically send you a text of the voicemail you just got. Boy does it suck bad. Here’s the latest transliteration of my cousin’s message:

It is totally misunderillegiblestandlable. I don’t know why Google doesn’t just give it up now and cancel this service. I mean, they cancelled Google Wave, and this service still hangs around? Ugh.

2

Ya know, you can also have GV send you the audio of the VM through the app or an email, which since it’s not live-streaming, isn’t dependent on having a fast internet/wifi connection.

3

Yes it does that and I use it. It’s just that it will text my phone with all this endless gibberish, I wonder why they even bother.

4

If you don’t like it, don’t use it. There are pay services that use real humans to translate your VM’s, but they charge per message.

It’s improved enough that I usually know if the message is important. I can’t rely on it to be 100% accurate, but I know if it’s a telemarketer or other such spam. Also, just having the Caller ID info attached to the voicemail is helpful to me(I realize Iphones can already do this).

Also, GV has many other features that are useful to people. I give out my GV number as my phone number, and if my cell number changes I don’t have to call everyone to give them my new number. It also allows me to blacklist numbers so telemarketers and ex girlfriends get a “this number has been disconnected” message instead of bugging me.

I really hope they don’t cancel it.

5

Thank you for sharing that, I laughed so much.

“…we can just need all we can until we say no more.”

That’s deep. I think.

6

Sometimes it’s good enough to know what what said, sometimes not. You’re never worse off than simply not using it.

7

GV Translations also suck for me. This is definitely not voice recognition picking the wrong words.

There is a human behind them who is just picking phrases that are kind of meaning the same thing as what is actually said. Sometimes the phrases they pick say more about the type of day they (the translator) is having than what is actually in the voice message.

This is a message where a friend is asking me about paint that will cover black mold in an apartment that she rents (there was no blood involved):

There are options on them to say that it didn’t help and to ‘donate’ the message to improve their services.