Voice recognition systems continue to play a more prominent role in our daily lives, and the phenomenon continues to roll out to more sectors. Irish company Soapbox Labs, founded in 2013, has put children at the center of its approach, to be used in education and other potential applications.
Voice recognition has a bright future ahead of it. Interfaces such as Alexa and Siri are, for some, part of everyday life in homes. Soapbox Labs offers a different product; instead of focusing on adults, the Irish company has focused its voice recognition technology for children. As Martyn Farrow, the new president of the company, explained to ETX Studio "It's still a relatively recent phenomenon, that we have voice interface technology in mainstream society -- only in the last six or seven years. Most of that technology is built for adults. For us, vocal recognition is an extremely interesting function for children in terms of education and learning through play."
In order to create a product that is truly for children, Soapbox Labs had to build its own database by studying the profiles of thousands of children. They weren't able to rely on adult profiles because the language patterns of older children are extremely different from those of younger ones. Articulation is different, vocabulary is different and the turn of phrase is different. "We're basically using speech recognition technology to subtract the intention of what a person might say in order to design an appropriate response," outlines Farrow. "We use machine learning to do that, it's like a big machine with a lot of data that makes models to get an answer for a question. To really understand a child, you have no choice but to strengthen your database."
Protecting the security of children's data
According to the company, children respond well to the voice talking to them and quickly become familiar with it. Farrow, who has used the technology with his own children, describes the moment as "magical," when kids, including those who are too young to read, realize that they can give instructions or ask for things using their voice. Many a parent knows, Farrow points out, that kids are good at using their voice before they learn to read. He explains how this effect allows for a "kind of magical world to open up in front of them." Voice recognition technology can be used in helping a child learn to read or do math or for listening to stories. The advantage is that the child can also ask any question at any time and get an appropriate answer.
One of the challenges in developing such technology, particularly when it is used with children, remains protecting the privacy of users. SoapBox claims that it does not identify users within its system and that its voice data is never shared or sold to third parties, nor is it used to support marketing and advertising activities. The company also strives to be able to offer its tool for integration into different applications.
