British watchdog begins probing Microsoft's acquisition of AI speech specialist Nuance

The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is to take a closer look at Microsoft's buy of talkative AI specialist Nuance. Today's announcement follows reports that the purchase, an all-cash transaction valued at $19.7bn when announced in April 2021, was set to get a nod from EU regulators. To be clear, the CMA is only …

[ShadowSystems]

That's the end of my screen reader then...

It uses Nuance to create the various voices the customer can have read the screen, so having that tech in the buttery, fat, fumble, & fuck up prone fingers of MS means that my screen reader will have to go elsewhere for suitable tech.

To give an idea of what a difference the quality of the voice tech makes, listen to the voice of NVDA versus Freedom Scientific's "Jaws". It's like the difference between hearing an almost real person versus Stephen Hawking's vox box.

*Sigh*

[elsergiovolador]

Idle Bones

Biggest threat to the UK SMEs is tax avoidance. It's hard to compete if the other side has significantly lower tax burden.

Is CMA breathing at the HMRC neck?

[Phones Sheridan]

American company, buys American company, and the brits think they have a say in the matter?