New Delhi: Microsoft has unveiled a unique app called Group Transcribe that lets people capture real-time collective meeting transcriptions using their smartphones, including in Hindi.
A product of Microsoft’s experimental division Garage, Group Transcribe uses a multi-device approach to provide real-time, high quality transcription and translation, so users can be more present and productive during in-person meetings and conversations.
“Group Transcribe allows us to address an authentic, ad-hoc, interactive mobile scenario to help people communicate without language barriers. Improving these models with usage data will ensure that our customers will have the best experience,” said Xuedong Huang, Technical Fellow and CTO of Cognitive Services at Microsoft.
The app is now available for free on iOS and supports several languages in over 80 locations globally.
To use the app, conversation participants start a shared session and each leverage their phone’s microphone to capture a highly accurate transcript, showing who said what in real-time.
One person starts a transcription and can invite others to join by sharing a five-letter conversation QR code or by joining the group transcription with nearby sharing over Bluetooth.
“The users can skip note-taking and focus their attention on the conversation itself. Transcripts are easy to share or relocate after the fact,” said the company.
Users can also leverage the real-time transcription to speak across different languages and make meetings more inclusive.
The app enables people who are deaf, hard of hearing, or non-native speakers to participate more fully by following along with the live transcript, the company said.
“This can be a fantastic tool for communication. What I would love to see is for this to break down barriers for people speaking across multiple languages,” said Franklin Munoz, principal development Lead and one of the lead engineers who built the project.
To effectively utilise this tool, each user will have to use their own phone within arm’s reach for the highest quality experience.
“While aiding users with quality, real-time transcription and translation, Group Transcribe will help make AI more accurate and inclusive by enabling an option to contribute conversation data,” Microsoft said.