Develop Reference

How to specify custom wakeword in spokestack-android

How can I specify a custom wakeword name (eg "stack overflow" or "party time") in the spokestack-android configuration? I'm looking for something like:
SpeechPipeline pipeline = new SpeechPipeline.Builder()
.setProperty("wakeword", "stack overflow")
//...
.build();

Update: You can train your own wakeword (without writing code, just providing audio samples) with a Maker subscription. When they're finished training, you can download and configure the custom wake word the same way you set up the default wake word.
Currently, Spokestack Android only supports wakeword detection via a binary classifier, so we only recognize "Spokestack". In theory, this could be done via Android's platform ASR, with the caveat that the user would constantly be interrupted by Google Assistant-style audible dings as the ASR request times out and gets restarted, so it'd only be useful for informal demos, not real apps.
That said, it's theoretically possible, so feel free to open an issue, and it might show up in a future version if we get enough demand for it.

Android TalkBack says repeatedly "Service [my app name]"

I have a popular read aloud app, that is also often used by visually impaired and blind people. Some, very few of them complain that when using the app or having it read aloud, it repeatedly says "Service at Voice" (my app's name is #Voice Aloud Reader). I tested this on several phones with different versions of Android and TalkBack enabled, but couldn't reproduce this problem.
The app is showing a notification with reading progress and buttons to pause/resume, FF and reverse etc. Of course all the reading aloud is done from a service, not activity, because a user may want to close my activity, or even turn off screen, and still listen. I would gladly post more technical details, but don't know which ones are relevant.
I tried searching for any combination of terms "TalkBack saying 'service' repeatedly", but cannot find anything relevant. My users who contacted me about this could not find either any setting in TalkBack app to make it stop saying this. Could anyone shed some light on this issue?

I found the reason for my problem, part of it was my own app code, and part just confusing behavior of Android system and TalkBack on different devices. Here is what was happening:
The app, #Voice Aloud Reader, reads text loaded into it (web pages, docs, books) and highlights the sentence it reads aloud. On each change of sentence it updates progress, both on its own screen if visible, and in the notification. The notification update code is pretty old, from Android 4 days. I did not know then how to update the content of notification, it seemed to me that the only way to update it, after using NotificationBuilder to update content, was to call in my service again:
startForeground(/* id: */ 1000, myNotifBuilder.build());
It worked well for years, also under TalkBack, no problems. Even today on at least 5 test devices I have with Android 5 to 9 and with emulators, TalkBack activated, it works correctly. But some users reported that upon reading each new sentence (progress update), TalkBack says "Service #Voice". I finally updated the code as follows, and my users report that the problem is solved:
if (newNotification) {
startForeground(/* id: */ 1000, myNotifBuilder.build());
}
else {
NotificationManagerCompat.from(this).notify(1000, myNotifBuilder.build());
}
I doubt that this knowledge will help many people, now notifications are documented better and there is a clear "Update notification" chapter that explains how to do this correctly in Google documents for developers.

I bet it's announcing the app name on orientation changes each time the MainActivity is created.
SO link

Using TTS on Android: Punctuation is read aloud

CONTEXT: My application is sending sentences to whatever TTS engine the user has. Sentences are user-generated and may contain punctuation.
PROBLEM: Some users report that the punctuation is read aloud (TTS says "comma" etc) on SVOX, Loquendo and possibly others.
QUESTION:
Should I strip all punctuation?
Should I transform the punctuation using this kind of API?
Should I let the TTS engine deal with the punctuation?
The same user that sees the problem with Loquendo, does not have this problem with another Android application called FBReader. So I guess the 3rd option is not the right thing to do.

I had the same problem with one of my apps.
The input string was:
Next alarm in 10 minutes,it will be 2:45 pm
and the TTS engine would say:
Next alarm in 10 minutes comma it will be 2:45 pm.
The problem was fixed just by adding a space after the comma like this:
Next alarm in 10 minutes, it will be 2:45 pm
This is a stupid mistake, and maybe your problem is more complicated than that, but it worked for me. :)

So, you're worried about what back-alley-acquired text-to-speech engine the user might happen to have selected as their default... presumably because you don't want your app to look bad due to this engine's unknown/bad behavior. Understandable.
The (good) fact is, though, that the TTS's behavior is not actually your responsibility unless you decide to embed an engine in the app itself (Difficulty: Hard, Recommended? No).
Engines can and should be presumed to adhere to Android rules and behaviors dictated here... and presumed to supply their own sufficient set of configuration options in the Android system settings (home\settings\language&locale\TTS) which may or may not include pronunciation options. The user should also be presumed intelligent enough to install an engine that they are satisfied with.
It is a slippery slope to take on the job of anticipating and "correcting" for unknown and unwanted engine behaviors (at least in engines that you haven't tested yourself).
A SIMPLE AND GOOD OPTION (Difficulty: Easy):
Make a setting in your app: "ignore punctuation."
A BETTER OPTION (Difficulty: Medium):
Do the above, but only show the "ignore punctuation" setting-option if the engine you have detected on the user's device is prone to this issue.
Also, one thing to note is that there are many, many differences between engines (whether they use embedded voices vs online, response time, initialization time, reliability/adherence to Android specs, behavior across Android API levels, behavior across their own version history, the quality of voices, not to mention language capability)... differences that may be even more important to users than whether or not punctuation is pronounced.
You say "My application is sending sentences to whatever TTS engine the user has." Well... "That's yer problem right there." Why not give the user a choice on what engine to use?
And leads us to...
AN EVEN BETTER OPTION (Difficulty: Hard and Good! [in my humble opinion]):
Decide on some "known-good" engines your app will "support," starting with Google and Samsung. I would guess that there are less than 5% of devices out there these days that don't have either of those engines on them.
Study and test these engines as much as possible across all Android API levels that you plan to support... at least in as far as whether they pronounce punctuation or not.
Over time, test more engines if you like, and add them to your supported engines in subsequent app updates.
Run an algorithm when your app starts that detects which engines are installed, then use that info against your own list of supported engines:
private ArrayList<String> whatEnginesAreInstalled(Context context) {
final Intent ttsIntent = new Intent();
ttsIntent.setAction(TextToSpeech.Engine.ACTION_CHECK_TTS_DATA);
final PackageManager pm = context.getPackageManager();
final List<ResolveInfo> list = pm.queryIntentActivities(ttsIntent, PackageManager.GET_META_DATA);
ArrayList<String> installedEngineNames = new ArrayList<>();
for (ResolveInfo r : list) {
String engineName = r.activityInfo.applicationInfo.packageName;
installedEngineNames.add(engineName);
// just logging the version number out of interest
String version = "null";
try {
version = pm.getPackageInfo(engineName,
PackageManager.GET_META_DATA).versionName;
} catch (Exception e) {
Log.i("XXX", "try catch error");
}
Log.i("XXX", "we found an engine: " + engineName);
Log.i("XXX", "version: " + version);
}
return installedEngineNames;
}
In your app's settings, present all engines that you've decided to support as options (even if not currently installed). This could be a simple group of RadioButtons with titles corresponding to the different engine names. If the user selects one that isn't installed, notify them of that and give them the option of installing it with an intent.
Save the user's selected engine name (String) in SharedPreferences, and use their selection as the last argument of the TextToSpeech constructor any time you need a TTS in your app.
If the user has some weird engine installed, present it as a choice also, even if it is unrecognized/unsupported, but inform them that they have selected an unknown/untested engine.
If the user selects an engine that is supported but is known to pronounce punctuation (bad), then upon selection of that engine, have an alert dialog pop up warning the user about that, explaining that they can turn this bad behavior off with the "ignore punctuation" setting referred to already.
SIDE-NOTES:
Don't let the SVOX/PICO (emulator) engine get you too worried -- it has many flaws and is not even designed or guaranteed to run on Android above API ~20, but is still included on emulators images up to API ~24, resulting in "unpredictable results" that don't actually reflect reality. I have yet to see this engine on any real hardware device made within the last seven years or so.
Since you say that "sentences are user generated," I would be more worried about solving the problem of what language they are going to be typing in! I'll look out for a question on that! :)

android how to get the emergency number to call

I see there are plenty of examples on how to call a number, and I also see that I can only have it pop up the dialer to go to an emergency number. But in all those example they hard coded "911" as the number to use. well this works fine in the US but since android phones are sold in other countries and thusly there is the possibility that my app will be bought by someone not in the US, or that someone who lives in the us may take their phone overseas; is there a way then my app can realize it's not in the us and thusly has to use a different number to call emergency service and what that number would be?
So to sum up I'd like to know if there is a way I can have it so when the app goes to bring up the dialer with the emergency number for the country it's in, with out having to know that number at complie time?

According to the source for PhoneNumberUtils.isEmergencyNumber():
String numbers = SystemProperties.get("ril.ecclist");
if (TextUtils.isEmpty(numbers)) {
// then read-only ecclist property since old RIL only uses this
numbers = SystemProperties.get("ro.ril.ecclist");
}
numbers will be a comma separated list.

Is there a way to to create a custom answering machine in android?

I'd like to create an app that allow you to filter incoming call to various answering message with :
"this number is not available" for black listed phone numbers
A formal message for strangers
A informative message about what your doing for friends
I don't know how you can get automatically a call, play a recorded message then wait for the answer and record it. Or maybe there is just a way to interact with the actual answering system so I just have to plugin.
Any clue strongly appreciated. A human sacrifice for any code snippet :-)

Access to the internal telephony is not possible or planned for future releases of Android:
http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers/browse_thread/thread/e8904c82a2c4a333
This would present a security risk as app developers could intercept and hijack sensitive calls (eg. telephone banking)

This is not possible on the tmobile G1 at this time. There is no way for an android SDK application to access the call input or output on this hardware/firmware combination.
http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers/browse_thread/thread/d04c307973345fef/a628e578900b3dce?lnk=gst&q=dave+sparks+play+audio#a628e578900b3dce
and
http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers/browse_thread/thread/185e33a3f420d1ac/e14e1dc84bb6dd24?lnk=gst&q=play+sound+call#e14e1dc84bb6dd24

I'm not sure this answers the question, but it is somewhat related I think.
You can install Ultimate Voice Recorder which can record your conversations (very useful when calling customer 'service'). Since it can record it, it must have some way to access the conversation.
Also, the capabilities you have to give the app are quite scary (translated from dutch: full internet access, intercept outgoing calls, change preferences, call phone numbers directly, record audio/take pictures, update contacts, auto startup). It seems to me there must be something in there that can help you?
However, I don't think it can inject audio into the stream. The symbian version had an option to insert beeps into the conversation, but I don't think the android version has it.
http://www.fingertip-access.com/

I have found out att for this use of your Phone Android or ISO, so far they ar decades behinde symbian and an inferior alternativ sadly, if you don't install a custom kernel/jailbreak it's not possible to record incoming calls and screen them. "Ultimate Voice Record ned you to use the phone in speaker mode."

it is possible to record voice calls with automatic answer. An update on this issue would be very helpful...
It is possible to have a resource that answers the calls. Enter a message and record the call. And together don't activate the microphone...
In short, an answering machine...