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BBC launches its own voice assistant - and it has a northern accent
From Amazon’s Alexa to Apple’s Siri, smart voice assistants are now a part of many people’s daily lives.
Now, the BBC has launched its own voice assistant, dubbed Beeb. Beeb was first announced back in August, but is now being rolled out to the public.
Grace Boswood, COO at BBC Design + Engineering, said: “We’re opening an early version – otherwise known as a beta – to UK-based members of Microsoft’s Windows Insider Programme, a community of people who regularly test out new technology.
“People in this programme will be helping us to improve Beeb by experimenting with features and generally putting the voice assistant through its paces. The next step will be bringing this beta version out to the general public in the near future.”
Beeb was developed in collaboration with Microsoft, and has a male voice with a northern accent.
Andy Webb, BBC’s head of product for voice and AI, told PA: “We’re really conscious of the sort of the problematic associations that exists between female voices and assistants, in that they’re sort of deemed to be being used in that sort of subservient way so we really wanted to make … a point and to put a male voice in there at the start.
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