What a Week at SpeechifyOriginalSimba went multilingual, streaming got timestamps, voice agents learned to switch languages mid-call. Qwen took the crown. MCP broke everything.Voice AI
TIL: Test TTS Voices With CurlOriginalOne curl command to compare TTS voice output side by side before you write any integration code. Handy for prototyping or auditing voice quality.TIL
5 voice AI stories that shaped the start of JulyOriginalOpenAI shipped voice reasoning, Anthropic models returned, ElevenLabs hit $22B, Deepgram went multilingual, and Google taught Gemini to use a computer.Voice AI
Qwen-Audio-3.0-TTS Flash Comes for Real-Time VoiceOriginalAlibaba's Qwen-Audio-3.0-TTS Flash targets the real-time TTS market on price and latency. What it means for voice developers and the API field.AI
TIL: Clone a voice in one API call with SpeechifyOriginalThe Speechify API creates a cloned voice from a 10-second audio sample with a single POST, returning a voice ID that works on any speech endpoint you already use.TIL
TIL: Read speech marks from the Speechify API responseOriginalEvery Speechify TTS response includes word-level timing data alongside the audio. Here is how to read speech marks and what you can do with them.TIL
Six tools that power production voice agentsOriginalBuilding a production voice agent takes more than an API key. Here are six tools I reached for daily at Deepgram, from streaming STT to async Python.Developer Experience
TIL: Deepgram keyterm prompting for accurate transcriptionOriginalImprove transcription accuracy for specialised terminology, product names, and technical jargon using Deepgram's keyterm prompting. One parameter that changes what the model hears.TIL
TIL: Testing speech-to-text with curlOriginalOne curl command transcribes audio through any REST-based STT API. No SDK, no imports, just your audio file and an API key.TIL
Voice AI APIs Converged Into Single-Call PlatformsOriginalThe week of May 11, 2026, three separate announcements pushed voice AI from multi-service pipelines toward unified single-call APIs. Here is what changed and why it matters for developers.Voice AI
TIL: Measuring API Response Times With curl -wOriginalcurl -w prints timing details like time_total, time_connect, and time_starttransfer after every request. Profile API latency from the terminal.TIL
TIL: Building JSON Payloads in Shell Scripts With jqOriginaljq constructs valid JSON from variables without string concatenation. No more broken payloads from missing quotes or unescaped characters.TIL
TIL: Debugging APIs With httpieOriginalhttpie formats JSON responses, highlights syntax, and shows headers by default. One command is often clearer than curl for exploratory API work.TIL
TIL: Implementing Exponential Backoff in TypeScriptOriginalA simple retry loop with exponentially increasing delays handles transient API failures. Add jitter to avoid thundering herd on recovery.TIL
TIL: Concurrent API Calls With asyncio in PythonOriginalasyncio runs multiple network requests concurrently without threads. gather() collects results as they finish, cutting wall-clock time dramatically.TIL
TIL: Streaming JSON Parsing With ijson for Large ResponsesOriginalijson parses JSON as it streams in, skipping the full parse. Handles multi-gigabyte responses without running out of memory.TIL
TIL: Validating JSON Schemas With Ajv in Node.jsOriginalAjv validates JSON payloads against a schema in milliseconds. Define your shape once and reject bad data before it reaches your logic.TIL
TIL: Testing HTTP Endpoints Locally With httpbinOriginalhttpbin returns request data as JSON so you can see exactly what your client is sending. No real endpoint needed for debugging.TIL
TIL: Rate-Limiting API Requests With BottleneckOriginalBottleneck queues API calls to stay under rate limits without losing data. Set max concurrent and min delay, then forget it.TIL
TIL: Managing Environment Variables With .env Files in Node.jsOriginalA .env file keeps API keys and config out of your code. The dotenv package loads them into process.env with zero config.TIL
TIL: Testing Webhooks With curlOriginalA curl POST to your webhook endpoint with a JSON body simulates any provider. No dashboard, no test suite, just response codes and latency.TIL
TIL: Parsing JSON API Responses With jq in the TerminalOriginalPipe any JSON response into jq and get coloured, filtered, transformed output without opening a file or writing a parser.TIL
TIL: Forwarding Localhost With ngrok for Webhook DevOriginalOne ngrok command gives any local server a public HTTPS URL. Webhook testing goes from impossible to trivial in under five seconds.TIL