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Facebook Messenger Voice Transcription Feature Being Tested

Facebook Messenger Voice Transcription Feature Being Tested

By Hitesh Arora | Updated: 19 January 2015 18:33 IST

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Facebook is testing a voice transcription feature for its Messenger app, which enables users to send voice clips with automatically typed-out text.

On Friday David Marcus, the company's VP of Messaging Products, announced the feature through a Facebook post saying that the company has started rolling out the feature to select Facebook Messenger accounts for testing purposes. With the feature, both the sender and the receiver will see an "Auto-created" text preview of the voice messages sent in Facebook Messenger.

"We're always working on ways to make Messenger more useful. As many of you know, we already offer a feature that enables people to send voice clips to their friends without having to type out the text. Today we are starting to roll out a small test that helps people read the voice clips they receive instead of having to play them out loud. So, for example, if you're at a concert or in a meeting, and would prefer to read a voice clip from a friend, you now can if you're part of the small test we're rolling out. Our plan is to test this feature at a tiny scale for now and we're looking forward to seeing what you think of it before making the experience more widely available," noted Marcus on its Facebook post along with an image of the feature (see above).

It seems that the company wants to make sure that the voice transcription feature works perfectly fine before it gets rolled out to everyone, as speech-recognition can be a disaster some times, and famously also has problems with different accents. This may lead to region-specific rollouts until the company can optimise for various accents and languages.

Last week, the company said it was testing "Facebook at Work", a version of its leading social network tailored for getting jobs done in workplaces instead of tuning into the lives of friends.

(Also see: Facebook at Work Talk Puts Pressure on LinkedIn)

The Facebook at Work app that is available listed for iOS and Android on the App Store and Google Play can only be accessed by a few companies collaborating with the social network.

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