Google Granted Patent On Annotating Maps With User-Contributed Pronunciations

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Google has been granted a patent on a method of determining the most typical pronunciation of a location name on a map by using audio clips submitted by locals.

A server generates a reference speech model based on user pronunciations, compares the user pronunciations with the speech model and selects a pronunciation based on comparison. Alternatively, the server compares the distance between one the user pronunciations and every other user pronunciations and selects a pronunciation based on comparison. The server then annotates the map with the selected pronunciation and provides the audio output of the location name to a user device upon a user's request.
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Makes sense - there are quite a few place names that the pronunciation varies from region to region.

Quite a few just in my own home territory. "Oregon" - the state is pronounced noticeably different locally than midwestern place-names "Oregon".

"Prescott" seemed obvious enough to me growing up near a Prescott Street (PREH-scot). Then I moved to Prescott, Arizona, where the local pronunciation is "PREH-skit".

And there is much humor with the local pronunciation of "Couch Street" in Portland - it's not "COWch" like the piece of furniture you sit on, it's "COOch", like, uh.....
 
This doesn't sound like the sort of thing that should be patentable. The idea is pretty obvious, it's all about the implementation, which is covered by copyright anyway.
 
Or, you could just use proper english, American or otherwise. Accents are just because people are lazy.
 
Doesn't take much effort to say Bum-F**k, Egypt. :D
 
Hey now, don't take away our way of easily identifying people who aren't from the area!
 
lol my inlaws love having me say oregon all the time (i'm from wisconsin)

CharonPDX said:
Quite a few just in my own home territory. "Oregon" - the state is pronounced noticeably different locally than midwestern place-names "Oregon".
Click to expand...
 
I love the fact they used Worcester as their example. Anyone that's ever lived in Massachusetts will understand why.
 
the funny thing that cracks me up most about it, is even the gps says the same thing.
 
It is ... "Wister" for crying out loud. :p

I'm going to annotate the entire southern US as "No Go Zones" ruled by the Christian Taliban. :eek::rolleyes:
 
Fershlugg said:
Or, you could just use proper english, American or otherwise. Accents are just because people are lazy.
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Southern accents are pretty awful. There are some hillbillies in the northeast that part of the US that are terrible too. You'uns to refer to more than one person...wursh instead of wash.

Anyhow, Google == patent troll
 
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