Dubbed ‘Aloha Voice Testing’ the feature is said to facilitate speech-to-text-to-speech conversion, allowing Messenger users more ways to interact with each other on the platform. The code found by Manchun shows a prototype of Aloha’s user interface in use on Messenger. A blue volume indicator can be seen in the form of a bar as words are dictated to Aloha and typed out in Messenger. This transcription tool can ease Messenger usage for older people and those with disabilities.
With this, Facebook will be a late entry into the voice assistant and smart speaker market. It will also need to compete with existing offerings from Amazon, Google, Apple and Samsung, all of which now have a smart speaker with a dedicated voice assistant.
Facebook did not respond to the revelations about Aloha or Portal, but a spokesperson told TechCrunch that the “team will be in touch in a few weeks about hardware news coming from the AR/VR org”. Facebook is hosting its Oculus Connect 5 conference on September 25.