This is a voiceover of the Sonic Insights Newsletter - which covers news in the emerging space of audio, voice and hearable tech. Subscribe: Newsletter Youtube Collin Dave

This is a voiceover of the Sonic Insights Newsletter - which covers news in the emerging space of audio, voice and hearable tech. Subscribe: Newsletter Youtube Collin Dave

This is a voiceover of the Sonic Insights Newsletter - which covers news in the emerging space of audio, voice and hearable tech. Subscribe: Newsletter Youtube Collin Dave

This is a voiceover of the Sonic Insights Newsletter - which covers news in the emerging space of audio, voice and hearable tech. Subscribe: Newsletter Youtube Collin Dave

This is a voiceover of the Sonic Insights Newsletter - which covers news in the emerging space of audio, voice and hearable tech. Subscribe: Newsletter Youtube Collin Dave

The Google app for iOS is getting new TTS features. Google revealed that iOS users can now have the Google app read articles out loud on iOS and queue multiple pages to be read in the style of a podcast. Insights: - The new TTS is for Google app specifically, not browsers like Chrome - Overview of the Queue - Comparison to Android Subscribe: Newsle…

Alexa users have been able to set custom Routines for a while now, but now Amazon is making it easy to share Routines with friends and family. Alexa now has the ability to turn Routines into shareable URL links so that customers can share their favorite Routines with others. Insights: - Background of Alexa Routines - Overview of how the new sharing…

This is a voiceover of the Sonic Insights Newsletter - which covers news in the emerging space of audio, voice and hearable tech. Subscribe: Newsletter Youtube Collin Dave

Amazon is doubling down on adding celebrities to the Alexa Platform. More features are coming to the Samuel L. Jackson skill and they recently signed Bollywood Star Amitabh Bachchan. Insights: - This is a two-pronged approach by Amazon to lure more users into trying its voice assistant, and monetizing people's desire to have custom voice assistants…

This year during the virtual Facebook Connect conference Mark Zuckerberg announced a partnership with EssilorLuxottica, the owners of Ray-Ban, to produce consumer smart glasses in 2021. He also announced Project Aria which is a new research project to build wearable AR glasses of the future. Insights: - 2 separate initiatives. One with EssilorLuxot…

Google and Lenovo have teamed up to create a turnkey hardware-software solution, built exclusively around Google Meet. The video conferencing solution is comprised of five hardware components, leverages Google's TPU capabilities, and uses Google Assistant to optimize the video conferencing experience. Insights: - As remote work grows in popularity,…

Observe.AI is a startup that uses AI, Speech Recognition, and Natural Language Processing to power call center software. They recently announced a $54M Series B funding round led by Menlo Ventures with participation from Next47 Ventures and NGP Capital. Insights: - Observe was started in 2017 and now has 105 employees, large customers, and accelera…

Dieter Bohn, the executive editor at the tech publication the Verge, published an article yesterday praising the Apple Watch’s utility, while highlighting the smart watch's biggest limitation: Siri. Apple's path toward creating more utility for Siri on the Watch might ultimately lie in using Siri to more accurately catalog the data being logged by …

To engage with popular voice assistants like Siri, Alexa or Google Assistant you need to call it by name. Cerence is switching this up for voice tech in the car by releasing its customizable wake-up word technology that enables drivers to create their own personalized wake-up word for their automotive assistant. Insights: - How the customizable wak…

Chartable, a startup that creates Podcast analytics & attribution for publishers and advertisers, just raised $2.25 million in seed funding. The funding was led by Initialized Capital, which also contributed to Chartable’s $1.5 million round last year and includes participation from Naval Ravikant, Greycroft Partners, The Fund, and Weekend Fund. In…

At the Conference for Machine Intelligence in Medical Imaging 2020 Nvidia researchers presented a paper giving insight into how a medically savvy language model can be applied to improve physician productivity and patient experiences. Insights: - How advances in NLP have lead to architectures such as BERT - The Nvidia hypothesis for biomedical data…

Replicant is an autonomous contact center that creates an always on customer experience with Voice AI. They just raised a $27M Series A led by Norwest Venture partners with participation from State Farm's venture arm, Atomic, Bloomberg Beta, and Costanoa Ventures. Insights: - Quick history on how Replicant was incubated out of Atomic, one of the Re…

This is a voiceover of the Sonic Insights Newsletter - which covers news in the emerging space of audio, voice and hearable tech. Subscribe: Newsletter Youtube Collin Dave

Trint’s speech-to-text platform makes any audio and video searchable, editable and shareable. They just raised a Series A Acceleration Round, with The New York Times Company as the lead investor. Insights: - Background & Experience - Looking Ahead Subscribe: Newsletter Youtube Collin Dave

Curio is an audio platform that handpicks content from leading publications and turns it into narrated audio you can listen to at any time. Their $9M Series A investment round is led by Earlybird, with participation from Draper Esprit, Cherry Ventures and Horizons Ventures. Insights: - Background & Experience - Looking Ahead Subscribe: Newsletter Y…

Google has recently been testing a new notification on phone lockscreens that provides tappable access to frequent Google Assistant commands. This has been a very limited release so far. Insights: - How it works - Google Assistant getting ambient Subscribe: Newsletter Youtube Collin Dave

Amazon announced the Addition of 38 new members to their Voice Interoperability Initiative, launched last September, including the likes of Facebook, Dolby, Garmin and Xiaomi . Alongside the announcement also came the Multi-Agent design guide, a white paper with design recommendations for Voice Interoperability members. Insights: - Voice Interopera…

You can now control your printer with your voice thanks to Alexa Print from Amazon. Using an echo device you can ask your printer to print common items such as to-do lists, recipes, calendars, educational content, and more. Insights: - More to the story - Homeschool help Subscribe: Newsletter Youtube Collin Dave…

Amazon is expanding its Alexa calling features, originally debuted in 2017, alongside a new partnership with AT&T. Customers can now link their phone numbers to their Alexa account which unlocks the ability to make and receive phone calls across their Alexa enabled devices. Insights Outline: - The roll out - Setup and control Subscribe: Newsletter …

Apple is starting to invest more in podcasts. Apple Books and Oprah announced the "Oprah's Book Club" podcast. It is an 8 episode series and will look at themes from "Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents," by Isabel Wilkerson. Insights Outline: - A little background on exclusive Apple content/podcasts - Content in podcast series & the release info…

Bose’s long-awaited next generation true wireless earbuds may soon be on- the-way according to a recently leaked video from Australian retailer, Harvey Norman. According to the video, the earbuds will be named Bose QuietComfort Earbuds, linking the product to Bose’s popular QuietComfort over-the-ear headphone brand. Insight Outline: - What to expec…

Sony Music UK, through their 4th Floor Creative Department, has started to experiment with conversational experiences on Amazon's Alexa platform in order to drive deeper relationships between artists and their fans. They recently launched the "Number One Fan" skill with Relentless Records' Tom Walker where the experience asks fans daily Q&A's with …

"Your News Update”, a personalized news feed based on your top interests, is coming to Google Podcasts. To make the news even better, it is also coming with a more natural text-to-speech offering. Insights Outline: - Background of the "Your News Update" feature - Podcast experience Vs Google Assistant experience - Improved Text-To-Speech that has a…

Facebook’s Reality Labs is taking on a new, twofold mission: to create virtual sounds that are perceptually indistinguishable from reality and to redefine human hearing. In order to achieve this mission, the team is focusing on enhancing the fidelity of “virtual sound sources”, and using sophisticated techniques to eliminate unwanted background noi…

Google announced a new feature for its phone app called "Verified Calls" that is designed to give consumers more info when a business is calling you. When a participating business calls, it will show the consumer the company's name, branding, a small badge to show that they are verified, and the reason for why they are calling in the first place. I…

Back in January at CES, Amazon announced a new Alexa Skill that allows you to use your voice to pay at gas station pumps. This experience is now available at more than 11,500 Exxon and Mobil gas stations across the entire United States. Insights Outline - How does this work? - Creating a contactless world Subscribe: Newsletter Youtube Collin Dave…

According to new data from IDC, Apple shipped 23.7 million AirPods and Beats during the second quarter of 2020. Apple continues to see industry-leading growth in its wearables business, thanks in large part to the continued success of its hearable devices. Insights Outline - Charting Apples wearable growth - Apple's wearable market share dominance …

Mastercard announced a new suite of frictionless solutions for retailers to reimagine their physical shopping experience. Part of this includes a partnership with Soundhound to help quick service restaurant brands (QSRs) transform their drive through or drive in interactions through vehicle recognition, voice ordering, and artificial intelligence. …

Each week, Collin Borns & Dave Kemp produce newsletter, audio, & video content covering news in the emerging world of audio, voice & hearable technology. The newsletters are brief and the content gets to the point - Insights are our only KPI. Insights Outline: - What type of content to expect. - Why we are doing this. Subscribe: Newsletter Podcast …