This article introduces NB-Whisper, an adaptation of OpenAI's Whisper, specifically fine-tuned for Norwegian language Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR). We highlight its key contributions and summarise the results achieved in converting spoken Norwegian into written forms and translating other languages into Norwegian. We show that we are able to improve the Norwegian Bokm{\aa}l transcription by OpenAI Whisper Large-v3 from a WER of 10.4 to 6.6 on the Fleurs Dataset and from 6.8 to 2.2 on the NST dataset.

Having Siri answer questions out loud can be helpful, but sometimes too loud for the environment the user is in. A new patent, spotted by Gizmodo, shows Apple is trying to address that inconvenience. The patent reveals Apple is looking into improving Siri by allowing her to detect when a user whispers to her, and in return having the voice assistant whisper back. The documents, titled "Digital Assistant Providing Whispered Speech," details a system that would recognize when a person is using his or her regular voice or when the user is whispering by measuring an input's amplitude and frequency patterns. Whispering to Siri now might pose a problem, since voice assistants usually need to hear commands loud and clear to answer questions or carry out tasks.

Amazon wants you to have long, real conversations with Alexa, its popular personal digital assistant. The e-tail giant recently released new tools to app developers that allow Alexa to whisper, show emotion and pause naturally, like we humans do. And that's just the start, says Rohit Prasad, Amazon's head scientist for Alexa, who is playing a key role in the retailer's efforts in artificial intelligence for Alexa--using computers to converse with us. "I truly believe that for AI to be useful in our daily lives, it has to be something you can connect with," Prasad said in an interview here. "Conversation is the next step, to be more human-like."