The MTC
voice assistant speaks Swiss German
. (
Image collage
: ETH Zurich / MTC)
“But none of the assistants available today speak or understand Swiss dialects, which makes communication with them rather unnatural for Swiss people,” says Klingler. This is why
MTC is developing a voice assistant that speaks Swiss German
. It has been speaking fluent “Bärndütsch”, the dialect of Bern, since 2019, and is currently being expanded to include other dialects.
As is characteristic of the work of MTC, the researchers are developing the Swiss German assistants in partnership with a Swiss media company. In this case, the partner is the main Swiss radio and television network, SRF. SRF publishes large amounts of content in local dialects on its channels. Technology that translates High German to Swiss German or that can announce the local news and weather forecast in the local dialect is therefore highly practical and gives the automatically spoken text a regional authenticity.
Support for digital transformation
MTC’s development projects are generally implemented in one to two years and offer practical benefits to editorial offices and media companies. The aim is to support Swiss media companies in their digital transformation. This applies to both the generation of journalistic content and the production of various media formats and methods that bring digital content to users and personalise media consumption.
The Media Technology Center is part of the
ETH media technology initiative
. The centre was established in 2019 with partners from the media industry. It is supported by the media companies Ringier, TX Group (previously Tamedia), SRG SSR, NZZ, Verband Schweizer Medien,
the association of employers and entrepreneurs in the Swiss printing industry
viscom and the ETH Zurich Foundation. All partners - like ETH Zurich - have contributed financially to make the MTC possible. The centre is still open to expand its partnerships. The scientific head of the centre is ETH computer science professor Markus Gross, who is joined by experts from the business and scientific sectors.
Open for media project ideas
“We are open to any project ideas from media companies and editorial offices,” says Klingler. MTC began its work in March 2019 and comprises eight researchers, supported by students and doctoral students, in the fields of computer vision, computer graphics, natural speech processing, recommendation systems, user modelling and machine learning. Ryan Cotterell has also been working in Zurich since February 2020. The computer science professor was appointed as part of the media technology initiative, and combines linguistics, automated speech processing and artificial intelligence.
