介绍:
Hefei: Innovative DNA Makes Learning More Fun
Anchor:
Hefei, the capital of east China's Anhui province, has become a home for sci-tech innovation. In today's special report, let's take a look at how newly-developed speech technology is making learning more fun and interesting.
Report:
You may not know that the city of Hefei is the birthplace of the first DVD player and the first microcomputer in China, but you are definitely using these technologies in daily life. As one of the four biggest science and education hubs of China, Hefei hasn't slowed its transformation into China's 'innovation high ground'.
Among its some 700 national high-tech enterprises, iFLYTEK is a company that may spark your interest. Let's check out its voice assistant mobile app - Ling Xi.
(soundbite, Luo Yu, male, English)
'Anhui province has a long history. It has a rich cultural heritage, beautiful landscapes and a superior location.'
(soundbite, Ling Xi, female, Chinese translation of the above sentence)
Well, as a native Chinese, I can tell you the translation is perfect.
Through a user's voice-command, Lingxi can complete a variety of tasks like make voice calls, send messages or look up weather conditions. It can even tell you a joke or hold a conversation, as if it were a person.
What is also impressive is that it can even do math on command.
(soundbite, Xie Jiajia and Ling Xi, female, Chinese)
'What is 3 squared plus 4 squared plus 10?' (female voice 1)
'It's 35.' (female voice 2)
Compared with Apple's Siri, Lingxi is more localized and has partnered with many third-party service providers such as restaurant review site dianping.com and streaming music website douban.com, offering a wide range of services to make life easier.
Feng Tao, deputy director of iFLYTEK's CEO office, maps out their future plan.
(soundbite, Feng Tao, male, Chinese)
'To put it simply, the speech technology is one that enables machines or devices to understand a command and respond like a human. The technology mainly comprises of speech synthesis that empowers machines to speak out, and speech recognition that enables the system to understand what humans are saying. We are also in the process of evolving our business as well - to expand our territory from speech technology to artificial intelligence; that is to say, to make machines think like us humans.'
Meanwhile, iFLYTEK aims to improve the quality of education nationwide with its interactive White Board—referred to technically as the Intelligent Speech Teaching Aid System.
One thing the board can do is to conduct vocal language lessons. For instance, a user picks a male or female voice that will act as a native-English-speaking teacher.
Then the user will be prompted to read a given sentence in English.
(soundbite, English teacher, male and female, English)
'
-Welcome to our school.
-Welcome to our school.'
If the user mispronounces a word, like the word 'cow' as 'coal', the system will give him or her a low score, then reveal the proper pronunciation.
(soundbite, an English word)
The White Board is also a wealth of information.
Suppose a person want to know more about Huangmeixi, an opera originated form Anhui province and famous across the country. All one has to do is write down the Chinese characters for 'Chinese Opera' on the board, and a map of China will appear on the screen; then the user can just circle Huangmeixi in Anhui province.
(soundbite, music)
Currently, more than 70 million students have benefited from the 'White Board' teaching system in China, including those from rural areas such as Xin Jiang and Tibet.
Xie Jiajia is an employee with iFLYTEK.
(soundbite, Xie Jiajia, female, English)
'Education is a very important part of our company, so you can see this can read and also can listen to what you said. In Xinjiang and Tibet, their teachers cannot communicate with us very frequently, so this educational tool can help them to help teach students and then make them improve their oral English or oral Chinese.'
The Intelligent Speech Teaching Aid System has completed trial operations and been used in 29 provinces. With leading speech technology and dedication to education, companies such as iFLYTEK will bring students a more convenient and efficient classroom learning environment.
Founded in 1999 by a group of students from the University of Science and Technology of China, iFLYTEK is now the largest listed company in Asia specializing in speech technology, covering over 70 percent of domestic voice-related market.
For Studio Plus, this is Luo Yu.
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