signal boosting relevant to amplificathon interests

[general_jinjur]

where amplificathon interests = talking at a computer. \o/

Hackability is signal-boosting for Open Source Speech Recognition:

Open source speech recognition software needs large samples of transcribed speech recording to make up an acoustic model. The VoxForge project is building acoustic models for English, German, Spanish, French, Hebrew, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, and Russian. You can contribute to one of these languages from your computer, recording and uploading to VoxForge's site, or by telephone. It looks very easy to contribute, and it will then be licensed under the GPL.

How can you help?

Record yourself reading some text, and upload your recordings to VoxForge.

Why help?

Benefits of speech recognition programs include accessibility benefits:
useful for people who have difficulty using their hands (rsi, disabilities that preclude using keyboard and/or mouse).
useful for people with hearing disabilities (voicemail to text, relay services, captioned telephone).
useful to people with learning disabilities who have problems with thought-to-paper communication.

Why is open source important?

Since most of us are using open source tools (audacity, etc) for podfic recording, this may be obvious. :) but in this case open source doesn't just mean easily or cheaply available - it also means not being held hostage by corporations for basic accessibility tools.

opinions expressed are mine, and have not come from the podmod hivebrain. /end disclaimer. info courtesy of trouble