iHearU The Voice of Social Media Networks iHearU is a smartphone app that connects users with their social networking using only voice commands. Available to License Market Opportunity Smartphone-based social networking is now an integral part of our everyday lives. Yet smartphone communication is inherently distracting, and there are many circumstances in which people can’t safely or conveniently see and touch their phones. Despite the widespread need for such solutions, currently there are no reliable speech interfaces to both control applications and send information in a hands-free and eyes-free way. iHearU addresses this market need. Technology Highlights iHearU is a hands-free and eyes-free Android app that supports the reading and publishing of Twitter posts and direct messages using only the voice. Using state-of-the-art speech recognition and speech synthesis technology, iHearU enables users to follow, interact with and participate in Twitter conversations without the need to stop continually to read and type tweets. Users simply record their message using their own voice and upload it using easily memorable vocal commands. A built-in sentiment analysis feature (currently in development) enables tweets to be spoken in an appropriate style (e.g. happy, sad) by a text-to-speech system. The app includes domain-adapted machine translation for translating nonEnglish content to English. It also oﬀers personalised search and recommendations on trends and the user’s favourite topics. ‘Learn More’ functionality enables the user to command iHearU to pull information related to particular tweets from Twitter or other sources and to summarise it. Applications • Bringing Social Media to New Markets: This simple voice-controlled app is particularly suitable for visually impaired users, mobility impaired users, and older people struggling with technology. • Social Media and Email on the Go: iHearU enables users to stay connected to social media while driving, walking, doing housework, etc. It could also be applied to email accounts. • Decision Support: ‘Learn More’ functionality pulls supporting information from structured and social media sources to give you more informed information on what’s happening on social media. To view a short demonstration of this technology, see http://ow.ly/LHAWI IP Status iHearU is available to license from the ADAPT Centre for Digital Content Technology. Contact our commercial team for more information. Commercialisation Contacts Gabriel Hogan licensing@adaptcentre.ie + 353 87 125 5080 www.adaptcentre.ie