Microsoft Word Now Does Voice Transcription…And Other Small Business Tech News

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Here are five things in technology that happened this past week and how they affect your business. Did you miss them?

1 — Microsoft launched a new transcription feature for Word. 

This past week, Microsoft released an Office 365 feature named Transcribe in Word. The new feature will allow individuals to transcribe audio in real time through Azure’s artificial intelligence. Although the tool is presently limited to Word’s online platform, their long term goal is to roll it into other 365 tools. With this feature, users will be able to upload various audio files to be transcribed or record a conversation straight to Word and have it transcribed immediately with the option to playback and edit the recordings. (Source: Silicon Republic)

Why this is important for your business:

This could be a game changer, because think about it: if you or your employees just want to talk into Word how do you do it now without a third-party product? I foresee small business owners using this as a way to dictate memos, write proposals and even create blog posts for their companies in a much faster way. I predict that the functionality will become advanced enough to recognize our commands with 99.99% accuracy and allow us to jump around existing documents. I also see this becoming a fantastic tool for disabled employees and workers performing field service. But will it replace the keyboard? (My company is a Microsoft partner)

2 — This battery could last for 28,000 years.             

NDB, Inc. — a startup that focuses on green energy— recently finished testing their self-charging nano diamond battery that could potentially last for 28,000 years. In two separate tests, researchers found that the battery maintained 40% of its charge, greatly improving the 15% charge retention of a regular diamond battery. NDB has developed the diamond in an effort to have a battery more efficiently extract charge and is looking to make it available commercially. The battery will only need exposure to open air and does not give off any carbon emissions. (Source: Tech Crunch) 

Read more: forbes