A lot has been going on in the interactive voice response (IVR) space. From new releases to the latest trends and insights, this is all of the most interesting IVR-related news of the week!

This week, some presidential propaganda was brought to light about IVR polling. The entire debacle revolves around one accusation; that prior to the first presidential debate (when the majority of opinion polls painted a pretty picture of Obama in the lead), Republican pollster John McLaughlin charged certain polling organizations with deliberately outweighing Democrats in their samples of prospective voters, Fridson explains.

According to a recent Forbes article, McLaughlin claimed that “the Democrats want to convince [these anti-Obama voters] falsely that Romney will lose to discourage them from voting. So they lobby the pollsters to weight their surveys to emulate the 2008 Democrat-heavy models. They are lobbying them now to affect early voting. IVR [Interactive Voice Response] polls are heavily weighted. You can weight to whatever result you want.”

In other news, specialized voice recognition software determined some interesting insights to a rare, endangered species of birds – the Gray Owls of Yosemite. Separated from their fellow flock nearly 30 millennia ago due to a glacial ice separation, the birds were involuntarily left to evolve over time. With less than 200 currently in existence in the small confines of the Sierra Nevada, it’s now being revealed that specialized voice recognition software developed by Joe Medley has captured so much data that it would take seven years to play back, which would hopefully shed light on the discreet animals.

Medley, a PhD candidate in ecology at UC Davis, accomplished this by placing 40 data-compression digital audio recorders around the surroundings which are thought to be favored by the uncommon creatures in hopes of identifying them by their mating, feeding and unique calls. To learn more about this incredible feat, read the article in its entirety by clicking here.

Wrapping up this week is news of Authentidate (News - Alert) Holding Corp., a provider of Web-based software applications and telehealth products and services for the healthcare sector, revealing its new IVR vital signs monitoring solution and Web services for the VA weight management protocol TeleMOVE.

After a required testing period to meet all criteria and needs, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) successfully completed the test-in phase for the IVR solution, which will help provide VA clinicians with a unique way to remotely monitor their mobile patients, thus enhancing patient care in their national Care Coordination Home Telehealth program.

"Authentidate is very pleased that the VA has approved the national rollout of our IVR solution with TeleMOVE,” said VP of Business Development at Authentidate, Gavin Stewart. “We believe that the other DMPs which are currently being pilot tested will be approved for national deployment in the near future and that our IVR solution provides a significant growth opportunity for our company. We continue to work closely with the VA to provide cost-effective solutions to help support their efforts to deliver the best health care for our veterans."

That’s going to do it this week for the latest IVR news. To see what’s new next week, be sure to check back in same time, same place – only here at TMCnet.