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Before smartphones and before cheap GPS, I got spoken turn-by-turn directions while driving from Tellme. 1-800-TELL-ME launched in 1999/2000. You told it your
by dangrossman 5y ago
Before smartphones and before cheap GPS, I got spoken turn-by-turn directions while driving from Tellme.
1-800-TELL-ME launched in 1999/2000. You told it your address and the destination address, and it read you the directions one at a time. E.g. after you made the first turn, you'd ask for the next one and it'd tell you. It did not need any GPS this way, it's like talking to someone sitting next to you reading the map for you.
Microsoft bought Tellme in 2007 for $800 million.
- atatatat 5y agoAnd did what with it? And why?
- grzm 5y ago> In early 2012, Microsoft divested itself of Tellme Networks' interactive voice response (IVR) service and the majority of its employees to [24]7 Inc. The service was moved to a non-toll-free number. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tellme_Networks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tellme_Networks
- dangrossman 5y agoTo do the same thing Google was doing that year when they launched GOOG-411: Using the interactive phone calls to train their speech recognition systems, so that they could eventually use what they learned to develop things like Google Assistant, Cortana, Windows Voice Recognition, etc. Tellme was taking 2 billion calls a year when they were acquired. They had all the training data Microsoft could want to compete with Google in that area.