WhatsApp to introduce voice message transcription feature
WhatsApp users can look forward to a new feature that will make their messaging experience even better. The company has announced that it will soon introduce a speech-to-text transcription feature for voice messages. This new feature will be rolled out globally over the next few weeks, with support for different languages depending on the user's operating system.
The transcripts will be generated on the user's own device, ensuring maximum privacy and security. This means that neither WhatsApp nor any other party will be able to listen to or read the user's personal messages.
Languages Supported
WhatsApp has revealed that the new transcription feature will initially support several languages on different operating systems. For Android users, languages such as English, Portuguese, Spanish, and Russian will be supported. On iOS 16, users can transcribe voice messages in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Turkish, Chinese, and Arabic. Additionally, iOS 17 will support Danish, Finnish, Hebrew, Malay, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, and Thai languages.
How to Use the Feature
To enable voice message transcripts, users can simply go to Settings, then Chats, and then Voice message transcripts. From there, they can easily toggle transcriptions on or off and select their preferred language for transcripts. Transcribing a voice message is as easy as long-pressing on the message and tapping on the Transcribe option.
Industry Trends
Voice message transcription is becoming increasingly popular in communication technology. While the technology shows great promise, accuracy remains a key challenge for many applications. For instance, the Whisper transcription tool developed by OpenAI has been found to produce occasional inaccuracies, particularly in healthcare settings.
Competitors like Apple have also ventured into the transcription space, with its Message app offering a similar feature. In addition, Apple's podcast app now includes auto-generated transcripts for episodes, showing a growing trend towards transcription services in the tech industry.
Meta, WhatsApp's parent company, recently faced an antitrust lawsuit filed by the US Federal Trade Commission. The lawsuit alleges that Meta has achieved a monopoly in the social media networking sector through its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp.
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