It’s been confirmed that Facebook has purchased Wit.ai, a company that specialises in speech recognition software.
In a post over on the official Wit.ai blog, the startup company confirmed it had been acquired by the giant social network.
Wit.ai started up 18 months ago with the intention of building an API for voice-controlled interfaces. Or, as the blog post puts it, “an open, distributed, community-based platform that makes it easy for developers to build apps that users can talk to.”
In the short time since its inception, Wit.ai is already said to be powering hundreds of apps and devices. Now it’s joining the Facebook team with all of the obvious benefits that entails.
The applications for Facebook are obvious – a Facebook app that can be navigated entirely by speech would certainly help the network to reach that next billion.
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It’s claimed that the Wit.ai platform will remain open and will become “entirely free for everyone.” The Wit team sees developers as the life blood of its project, and wants to continue harnessing the community’s energy and passion.
Also, as TechCrunch points out, this could be part of Facebook’s ongoing bid to get developers onside, helping them to build apps in return for eventual ad payments.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
