Speech recognition and synthesis in Ukraine

There was a time when Ukraine had been leading the way… In late 60-s of the past century the works of Taras Vintsuk of Kyiv Institute of Cybernetics, were considered to be on the science’s leading edge. And in the former Soviet Union Kyiv Institute of Cybernetics had no rivals in speech recognition.

The Department of Recognition and Synthesis of the International Center for Science and Education in Information Technologies and Systems, located in Kyiv, should be noted as undisputable leaders in Ukrainian speech recognition and synthesis.

The specialists of the Department are working with all of the advanced open-source program packages. We are currently working in the following directions:

- speech recognition;
- speaker recognition;
- keyword spotting;

Efforts of Tetjana Lyudovyk and Mykola Sazhok, members of the Department, resulted in creation of a Ukrainian speech synthesizer.
It's first application, several years ago, was the Vymova Plus (English translation - pronunciation plus) software.
The same synthesizer is used for synthesizing of Ukrainian pronunciation for SMS2Voice project maintained by Global Messages Services. SMS2Voice project enables sending SMS not only to mobile telephone users, but also to stationary telephones, which substantially extends the possibilities of communicating making it easier and more convenient. In simple words, one can send a SMS to a stationary telephone, and the SMS text will be pronounced.

If you have your own ideas, which realization would involve speech recognition or synthesis related matters, or want to test our recognition for English, Ukrainian, Russian, German, Spanish, Kazakh please get in touch with us at speech_ua at yahoo.com.

Below is an example of news recognition (CNN 10). The text is synchronized with the audio, and clicking on the word will change the slider's time in the player. In blue, the words with a lower probability of recognition are marked, in accordance with the increased likelihood of error.

The center you have to tell you about today it involves a shooting into Thousand, Oaks California. Here's what we know. It took place on wednesday night at a place called borderline Bar and Grill students from California, Lutheran, University and Pepperdine University are believed to have been there. At the time officials estimate, hundreds of people were police, say a gunman forced his way into the bar and started shooting with a single handgun Ventura County sheriff's officers got to the scene within three minutes after the first emergency call was made. Two of them went into the bar after hearing shots and one of them law enforcement veteran was killed at least eleven other people died in the incident, including the suspected shooter police believe he killed himself. What they don't know is why this happened. Police say the gunman was a 28-year-old military veteran. He had had run-ins with police before a share of says. A crisis team that visited the suspect in the past thought he might have had Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, possibly from the time he served in combat the mayor of Thousand Oaks, which is located about forty miles west of Los Angeles says his city is considered to be one of the safest in the country that was echoed by one of the witnesses to the shooting borderline Bar and Grill was hosting college country night, which is popular with students when the shooting happened. Yeah yeah second Veterans Day, originated within observance that mark the end of World War us civil war, World War One World War Two Vietnam War. The holiday observed on November eleventh recalls Armistice Day, which marked the end of World War. It's widely quoted the armistice that ended the war went into effect on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. So this Sunday is the anniversary and it will be exactly one hundred years since the guns fell silent in the war to end all wars. Sadly, it didn't live up to that name with the larger, more brutal conflict of World War Two, beginning just twenty one years. After the First World War ended, but at the time World War one ran from one thousand, nine hundred and forty one thousand. Nine hundred and the world had never seen a conflict like it. Millions of people from across the planet were killed even a century after the war ended, some battlefields in France and Belgium still show the craters made by the shells. Some areas are still close to the public, because they're filled with unexploded bombs and minds tanks, machine guns, fighter, planes, chemical weapons. They were all used on a large scale for the first time. So the war made history both for the destruction caused in the technology used to carry it out now. Modern technology is taking footage like this and helping people envision World War One, as it looked to those who fought it. This report by Nick glass helps bridge the past with the present, of course, so much faster, now just whistle to the station Letchworth some forty miles north of London station building itself hasn't changed that much in the central. So the big difference on that summer's day way back in August nineteen fourteen was the main platform. Was crowded with men in uniform going off to war? The way we remember the great has certainly changed. The images have been tinted: we've come to see the war in color. For the first time, this is private. Water, Flanders and private Bill Johnson have a tragically short war in at least two chaps, both killed by the same shell buried alive Hill is trying to identify all the men on the platform and find out what happened to me. This is corporal author. Ernest Boardman he's the very first manifold. So far has identified eleven photo. Eight of them never came home. Names are on the war memorial. Just fifty yards from the railway station called Boardman privates, Flanders and Johnson among a long list of other casualties. Just colorizing, black and white stills obviously makes a story more accessible to a younger generation. Doing the same to moving footage has been infinitely more dramatic. It just brings to life and someone who's had a long-term interest. In the last two or three years, when we've been restoring this footage but incredibly exciting to see the faces, you see the people who see the humanity Peter Jackson's documentary they shall not grow old. Gives us a rare insight in what it's like the trenches on the Western Front, both electrifying funny and sobering, the film about camaraderie and animal savagery. We learn what it was like to be an ordinary soldier. This is the welts grandfather Peter Jackson never met. William Jackson was guns, the Battle of the psalm in France in one thousand nine hundred a lucky one. He survived private Ted Ambrose didn't he was nineteen when he died, his suitcase was returned from his mother in England. She could hardly bear to open it quickly consigned to the most of the twentieth century Ted's pipe tobacco cigarettes, including army issue read who sars locket with pictures of himself and his sweetheart service medals. He never lived to receive the artifacts amount to a rare discovery. Time capsule we began the scenery The Great War in 2014, with the motor, the Tower of London filled with a sea of ceramic poppies. Some of them have migrated across to the Imperial War Museum, a cascade of weeping window spilling down the building Britain's Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy has written a new poem tomorrow, the armistice The Great War. She writes the time. Will we ever remember it was quite so much intensity again. Nicholas CNN London well from technology used to color film from the past. Here's an idea of how Nasa is using tech to give extremely high definition. Views of the International Space Station No I, said an idea and not a look. The reason this is video in eight K. That means it has sixteen times the number of pixels HDTV has it's just too bad for most people. They can't actually see this in HK because there aren't a lot of monitors around that have the ability to show it so well. Nasa can record and you're probably just viewing this in HD, which for some will be the very high definition of disappointment. They'll need to see the problem come to a resolution before they're. Ok with it, they could be torn apart if their vision stops at a peak from which they just can't pixel it to be anything better. The issue is liquid crystal clear: someone will have to take the screentime sharpen it uncorrelated and Fridays are awesome. Cnn ten, which is all of you, are wonderful, Veterans, Day weekend and to the veterans in our audience and those currently serving in the military. Thank you for your service