Vienna is now Aqua Voice

From: Finn Brown, Co-Founder

Introduction

In the summer of 2023, we started working on something new. Since then we've been working nights and weekends to build it.

It’s called Aqua Voice, and it's a voice-driven document editor.

Background

I’ve been using dictation software since the sixth grade, when my dad got me set up on Dragon Dictation to write papers for school. I’ve never been a very good speller, and it’s always been easier for me to dictate—despite the janky software—than to type.

But today there are big problems with writing with your voice:

• It’s not very accurate.
• You have to learn specialized commands.
• Final edits require the keyboard.

Aqua Voice solves all three.

How it works

Aqua Voice feels as natural as talking someone at a keyboard. It writes what you say, but it also does what you say.

We achieve these interactions using an ensemble of models fused together in a way that allows them to understand your intent, not just what you literally said.

Examples

Same Mission, More Focus

At Vienna, now Aqua, we talk a lot about our "vision" for the future. As you may have seen, we like the phrase "Digital Renaissance." It's been our way describing the effect we want our products to have on the world.

This can feel delusionally far from the state of the world in the year 2024. People’s gut feeling about internet tech is negative... and we get that. It’s screwed up more lives in the last 20 years than it’s helped.

But I think this time will be different, the winds have already shifted. Generative AI, or Machine Intelligence 1.0, or whatever you want to call it is going to be more PC than internet tech. It will be an age of tools, not toys. Think "industrial revolution," not "printing press."

Aqua Voice is one such tool. We couldn't have built it 2 years ago, and it'll improve a lot in the next 2 years. But we think it's ready for early adopters now.

What we’re really trying to do is to build "unlockers." A huge number of the greatest works of literature were dictated. The Odyssey, The Epic of Gilgamesh, Beowulf, Paradise Lost, and The City of God are just a few. Plato himself was against writing, favoring the spoken word.

But how many of us can afford a full-time human scribe?

With Aqua, the price is $10 a month.

It is our genuine hope at Aqua Voice that people will be able to not only be more productive at school and in their jobs, but also to create things that otherwise would not have been created at all. We feel that Aqua Voice allows us to focus on the actual idea-manipulation and language-crafting in the most human way.

What’s Happening to Vienna

We plan to keep the servers for Vienna Canvas going indefinitely. We love the product and still use it internally, but we are focusing our energy on Aqua Voice.

We don’t have any changes to announce to Vienna Scribe.

Click here to get Aqua Voice.