Meta has introduced a new speech-to-text translation tool called VoiceBox. Photo: File
Palo Alto, California: Metta, the founder of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has recently introduced a brand new tool called ‘Voicebox AI’. Thanks to this, when ordinary users enter a sentence in their language, it instantly translates it and displays it in text.
Currently it can also do the reverse i.e. translate embedded text into audio. However, it can be heard in different modes and moods etc. According to the company, it performs text-to-audio translation at a very good level but requires less data input and learning.
Although its usefulness is still being tested, VoiceBox can do many other things. It can create high-quality audio clips from pre-recorded audio. For example, if you have recorded something important somewhere and there are car horns and noises in the background, Voicebox can remove them and present the best audio file.
According to analysts, in the next phase the voice box will become closer to the human voice. In this way, the machine generated voice will be able to give a slightly more realistic and human appearance. It is currently limited to six languages and will be expanded in the future. It will eventually be used for virtual characters in the Metaverse. Maybe that’s what Meta wants too.
On the other hand, visually impaired people will be able to hear text messages written by their friends in their own voice. Because of all these features Voice Box can be used for many important tasks.
Some experts have warned that it will also open a new door to fake videos, voices and characters. However, only time will tell its usefulness.
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