VoicePing Inc., which aims to establish a metaverse work environment, made a major feature update on November 7, 2022, to support smooth and effective overseas collaboration for global companies. The new features include improved AI real-time voice translation accuracy, a customized phrase function that allows users to register difficult-to-recognize phrases, an office customization function for designing office space freely, and a remote desktop function that allows users to control the other party’s PC when sharing a screen.

■ Background

Post-covid made many firms switching to remote or hybrid work according to company characteristics to ensure operational efficiency and recruitment/retention capabilities, and this trend is expected to continue to increase.

At the same time, global companies with overseas offices are faced with the challenge of developing and strengthening management systems for their overseas offices or subsidiaries. The different infection situations and corresponding travel restrictions in each country are changing dynamically, making it difficult to dispatch personnel from the Japanese headquarters and efficiently direct them, as was the case before the coronas. Therefore, a key challenge for global companies in the wake of the COVID is to ensure that the local subsidiaries and headquarters collaborate well together remotely. In particular, it is crucial to solve the problems of insufficient communication caused by language barriers, lack of a sense of unity due to the inability to grasp the local atmosphere, and inability to manage productivity due to the lack of visualization of working remotely.

VoicePing, a virtual office equipped with voice recognition and translation AI, has solved these problems by providing real-time voice translation. We have received orders and inquiries from various global companies from a wide industry, including an offshore development company with a development base in Vietnam, a manufacturing company with a factory in China, a training scene in Indonesia, and a furniture manufacturing company with factories in China and Cambodia. Based on the requests from these customers, we have been working toward our vision of “making global teams can collaborate without any friction” and we have developed a system that enables global companies to communicate beyond language barriers, to talk to each other easily by visualizing the work situation and atmosphere, to form a sense of unity, to manage the team’s productivity. Here, we announce that VoicePing has made a major update to the system so that global companies can have a reliable management system.

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■ Improved Accuracy of Real-Time Voice Translation

The voice translation accuracy of VoicePing’s built-in speech recognition AI has been improved. We show demonstration videos for each language.

VoicePing offers transcription in 45 languages, including Spanish, French, Chinese, Italian, Korean, and Portuguese, and translation between languages. VoicePing also includes an “English Retranslation” option, which translates the transcribed language into English once and then translates it again into the desired language. This allows difficult words to be broken down and translated in a way that is easier to understand, or in an order that is easier to convey the meaning rather than a direct speech translation. Consecutive translation of transcriptions will be added as an option at a later date.

This is useful for companies that have overseas offices, business partners, and subcontractors where language barriers prevent enough communication with local employees. In addition, transcribed and translated content can be automatically saved as minutes on the cloud and recorded with transcription subtitles, making a smooth handing over of one’s duty possible to be facilitated when the person in charge changes.

■ Custom phrase registration for accurate transcription

In-house-only words and proper terms that are difficult to display in text transcription can be registered in advance. In conventional transcription, when a term that is not commonly used is spoken, even if it is correctly transcribed, the AI may determine that it is not appropriate based on the context and replace it with another incorrect word.

This feature is effective for board meetings, call centers, etc., where accurate transcription and minutes need to be created automatically. If each member of the project makes a list of words that seem to be difficult for AI to transcribe in advance and register, it can be expected that the quality of generated minutes improves. As the transcription accuracy improves, the translation accuracy will also improve.

■ Customizing Office Layout

You can now freely customize your virtual office space within the application.
The new feature allows you to arrange and adjust the size and angle of desks, chairs, and other office components as you wish, so you can easily customize the office map to suit your needs. You can also upload the very components you want to use for even greater design freedom. In addition, an edit log of the office space is stored, allowing you to revert to previous versions of the map you are creating. Also, specific versions can be templated to create multiple similar layouts.

Text placement is also possible, making it easy to manage an office with assigned seating by including the names of departments and members. Hybrid teams with real offices or teams with multiple locations can synchronize their real office space on a virtual space.

■ Broadcast function

A broadcast function has been released that allows your voice to reach everyone in the virtual space.
On the “floor” where members usually stay, you have to bring your avatar closer to the other avatar to be heard. Therefore, in order to speak to all members of the company, it was necessary to invite each member to join.
With the broadcast function, it is possible to reach everyone on the floor. When the broadcast starts, a PIP notification shows up on the PC screens of everyone on the floor so they don’t miss it. Also, the avatar of the person broadcasting will be enlarged, so people on the floor can see who is speaking with a glance.

Broadcasting by multiple people is also possible.

It can be used to hold internal and external events, receptions, exhibitions, webinars, open campuses, training sessions, and so on.

■ Emoji reaction function

A reaction function has been added that allows users to convey their feelings using emojis.
When teleworking, where it is difficult to see the facial expressions of others, it is hard to grasp the thoughts of others and the overall atmosphere, which tends to make it difficult to enhance rapport.

By utilizing emojis, the atmosphere of the place can be shared, improving engagement within the team and stimulating comments. The “raising a hand” feature is also useful for webinars and online events, as it allows people to raise their hands when they want to ask a question.

■Drawing on Shared Screen

You can now draw on a member’s shared PC screen.
When meeting or collaborating while sharing a screen during a web conference, there are situations where verbal explanations alone are inefficient, such as specifying a particular button or telling someone where on the screen to fix. With this drawing function, pictures drawn by other members will appear on the shared PC screen of the other party, improving productivity in those situations.

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■Remote Desktop

A remote desktop function that allows the control of remote PCs whose screen is shared has been added.
There are times when you may want to remotely control the other person’s PC to provide support or explanations. With this new function, you can remotely control the other person’s PC during their screen sharing, making it easy to explain how to use the tool or provide support for specific tasks.

This is especially useful when pair programming or explaining how to use complex SaaS tools such as MA tools, CRM tools, and SF tools. Furthermore, by using the cloud recording function and automatic minute-taking function included in VoicePing, even if the members who received the explanation forget how to do it, they can check the records and solve problems by themselves without asking questions again.

■ Virtual Background and Customizing of Avatar’s shape
You can change the shape and size of your avatar and set the background to your favorite image when your camera is turned on.

Its size can be changed in 5 levels, the shape can be changed to round or rectangular, and the background can be set to any image you upload.

You can flexibly make use of this function for online interviews, customer service, and business meetings where you need to show your face well and gain credibility.

■Noise cancellation

A noise cancellation function has been released that cuts off noise sounds around you and picks up only voices.

During teleworking, sometimes you have to hold a web conference in a noisy environment. However, it is not uncommon to have to reschedule the meeting due to excessive noise.
VoicePing’s noise cancellation function allows you to deliver your voice clearly to the other party even in places where surrounding sounds are bothersome, such as shared offices, cafes, bullet trains, and so forth.

■Outlook Calendar integration

Statuses can be automatically updated in connection with Microsoft’s Outlook Calendar, and the text content of calendar dates can also be shared.

Changing your status accordingly in real-time manually requires you a kind of habitation which needs a long time to create. With this feature, you can simply enter the dates of meetings in your Outlook Calendar(Google Calendar is also available) or Microsoft Teams schedule and your status will be automatically updated accordingly.

In addition, it is now also possible to automatically display the text content and scheduled time of the calendar. The automatic sharing of not only statuses but also work content is expected to further improve the accuracy of the timing you call out other members.

■ Searching Members

You can now easily find members you want to call out by searching for their names.
When there are dozens or more employees on multiple floors in a virtual space, it becomes difficult to find the person you want to contact with a single glance. With this function, you can search for a member’s name and immediately call out. In addition, using the function that memorizes a certain position in the virtual space, you can easily return your avatar to its original location after a conversation.

■ Auto Call for Regular Meetings

A function has been released that allows users to pre-set the time of a regular meeting and participants, and automatically call them up when the time comes.
It is not unusual for teleworkers and hybrid workers to be so focused on their work that they inadvertently miss a meeting. With this feature, members who are scheduled to participate in a meeting can be called automatically just before the meeting. A notification with a button to join the meeting will show up on the PC screen, ensuring that they will not forget the meeting and will be able to participate smoothly.

When used in combination with the automatic minutes with transcription, data for the regular meetings will be automatically saved, contributing to the accumulation and sharing of knowledge in the team.

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■ Edit Work Log

You can now manually correct past work logs.

If you want to use the time tracking function to keep a log of what and when you did it for the purpose of properly managing your team’s productivity, the work logs must be accurate. However, it is difficult to keep an instant record if you are a salesperson who cannot leave always the computer on or if a meeting starts suddenly.

With this new function, even if the work log was not written at the right time, it can be manually revised later to keep an accurate work log.

■ Invoicing function

You can now issue an invoice inside the VoicePing app.
The function to create an invoice by entering the billing address, time, and hourly wage, and to output, the invoice as a PDF file has been implemented within the app. It is possible to make accurate work logs that check working hours by manually revising the working log, which makes it possible to issue invoices based on those hours that are acceptable to both parties.
The system can be utilized when compensation is calculated on an hourly basis, such as for part-time work, outsourcing, and overtime calculations. It is also a merit that employers can manage invoices with the same format.

■ Credit Card Payment

You can now easily make credit card payments and change plans within the app.
Until now, users had to contact the support team when changing from a free plan to a paid plan, upgrading from a small plan to a premium plan, and canceling a subscription or vice versa.
But with this feature, users can freely upgrade or downgrade their plan without contacting the support team. This allows users to smoothly complete the process that is needed to change the plan when the size of their team changes, or when the number of floors or transcription time they want to use changes.
Please note that we do not support a 2-week free trial.

■Service overview

• Pricing

We offer different plans depending on the size of your team. It’s basically 5 dollars for 1 user per month.