Chinese tech giant Baidu is planning to incorporate Artificial Intelligence in its TypeTalk app to augment its capabilities. The company unveiled its new Android keyboard, TalkType, which is capable of understanding voice commands. The keyboard has many additional features such as quick posting.
Baidu explained that the new keyboard is trailblazing as it is "voice first," unlike conventional keyboards which are "voice also."
Bijit Halder, the head of Baidu's Silicon Valley AI Lab product team, said that regular keyboards can only accommodate the occasional use of voice commands. However, TalkType is designed to use voice "as the primary input mode."
The app uses Baidu's speech recognition engine which makes intensive use of Artificial Intelligence for various purposes ranging from listening to the interpretation of context. It also uses AI for converting voice commands into digital text. The voice transcription engine used by the app is called Deep Speech. The talk feature also comes with an error detection function, which highlights the words not understood by the machine.
Baidu is also using optimization to deliver personalized services to its users. The company intends to use data to build a stronger algorithm, which in turn will help it to provide better performance.
TypeTalk was unveiled on the Google Play Store, a few months ago. With its latest update, the featured keyboard goes a step beyond the scope of the currently available keyboards such as SwiftKey and Swype. Baidu is looking to change the way keyboards are used and plans to opt for voice commands instead of tapping.