Wikipedia working on crowdsourced speech engineMarch 11, 2016 - 11:03 AMT PanARMENIAN.Net - Wikipedia announced on Thursday, March 10 that it is collaborating with researchers from Sweden's KTH Royal Institute of Technology to develop an open, crowdsourced speech engine that will make the online encyclopedia more accessible to people with reading or visual impairments, Engadget reports. Wikipedia estimates that 25 percent of its user base -- approximately 125 million people monthly -- will benefit from the new service. And while the engine will be optimized for use on Wikipedia itself, any site running MediaWiki software will be able to integrate it as well. "Initially, our focus will be on the Swedish language, where we will make use of our own language resources," KTH speech technology professor Joakim Gustafson, said in a statement. "Then we will do a basic English voice, which we expect to be quite good, given the large amount of open source linguistic resources. And finally, we will do a rudimentary Arabic voice that will be more a proof of concept." Wikipedia plans to have English, Swedish and Arabic ready by the end of the year before moving on to the other 280 languages its site supports. Top stories Yerevan will host the 2024 edition of the World Congress On Information Technology (WCIT). Rustam Badasyan said due to the lack of such regulation, the state budget is deprived of VAT revenues. Krisp’s smart noise suppression tech silences ambient sounds and isolates your voice for calls. Gurgen Khachatryan claimed that the "illegalities have been taking place in 2020." Partner news Most popular in the section | Czech-Armenian military cooperation discussed in Yerevan A delegation led by the Director General for the Industrial Cooperation Division of the Ministry of Defence of the Czech Republic visited Armenia. U.S. welcomes efforts to define Armenia-Azerbaijan border The United States welcomes efforts to define the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan, says Vedant Patel. Biden honors resilience of Armenian people on April 24 U.S. President Joe Biden has issued a statement on the 109th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. Ex-Karabakh leader moved to solitary confinement cell in Baku, his son says David Vardanyan is the son of former Karabakh leader Ruben Vardanyan who who is currently imprisoned in Azerbaijan. |