One Step Closer to Star Trek

[miss_yt]

I just read about something seriously cool today - a new kind of dictation software that achieves 99 percent accuracy without prior "training." It also "learns" the more you use it, so its accuracy increases over time. Most dictation programs require a "training" period in which the user must read from a canned essay so the software can learn to recognize the user's voice. And, of course, it won't work nearly as well (if at all) for anyone else.

My dad used dictation software like this several years ago when he was suffering from tendonitis and had to lay off using a keyboard for a while. Of course, the program he used was a dinosaur compared to this one, and had a lower accuracy rate. This new software would be great for anyone in his situation - or people who suffer from paralysis or motor function problems. At $100 dollars for the basic package (which has the same accuracy rate as the fancier ones), it won't break the bank, at least not for anyone who can afford a computer in the first place.

And, as I said in the title, it brings us closer to the voice-command computers in Star Trek the really souped-up version of this dictation software (the one that costs $900 dollars) will allow you to use voice command to operate your computer, at least in Windows. In ten or twenty years, houses wired with voice command functions for the doors, garage, security system, and appliances may not be all that uncommon. Assuming we don't all kill each other off by then.

For a couple of seconds I thought it would be neat to have this myself, for my own fanfic writing (which, admittedly, I haven't been working on lately). But I don't need it, really. I can type almost as fast as I can speak, and I know that I'm a more articulate writer than I am a speaker. So, as 1337 as this is, I'm happy to stick with my keyboard.

Comments

[nightengalesknd.livejournal.com]

I'm not all that certain I want to talk to my house. And I mean, if I'm saying "open a window," how would the system know if I meant on my computer screen, in the living room, or as dialoge in writing I was dictating?

I'm supposedly being taught to dictate notes for patient charts. Right now I'm still typing them. I hear the doctors and NPs dictate and they are so fast and so organized, but for me, I type pretty darned effeciently, and there's something to be said for having your words in front of you on the screen to move or edit or refer to partway thorugh.

[batshua]

Re which window to open, the computer would rely on certain phrasings to understand context.

Saying "Open a window" would probably open one on screen, while "Open my bedroom window" would open one in your house. If you were dictating dialogue you would say "quote open a window endquote" and it would understand that it was a quote, not a command.

[miss-yt.livejournal.com]

Or you could preface "open a window" with something like "dictation," "computer command," "house command."

[batshua]

Or, if it was *really* like Star Trek, you could say "Open a window", and the voice of Majel Barrett would say "Please clarify. Do you wish to open a window in your room, onscreen, or use this phrase as typed text?".

[alashiya.livejournal.com]

*snort* If my house could talk to me, it would probably say "CLEAN UP YOUR BEDROOM ALREADY!" I have little stacks of books all over it, waiting to be read. And I have this weird quirk of liking to read them in order, instead of doing the easy thing and putting the new one on the top. Have you ever tried to make headway in "American Theocracy" after a long day? Yipe.

I very rarely read the going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket genre. I made an exception because I remembered Kevin Phillips. Before most of you were born, he was a big-name "Reagan Republican." Reagan Republicans courted fundamentalist voters, though not as seriously as your modern Republicans do. Reagan didn't court any voters seriously; he told them what his speechwriter had written for him to tell them, listened politely to whatever they had to say, smiled genially, and went on and did whatever he wanted to do, voters and speechwriter notwithstanding. Modern politicians should study the career of Ronald Reagan. He'd propose something. The various interest groups and many of the other politicians would be enraged by his proposal. The United Nations would scream. The Soviets would scream. Everybody would be mad. And Reagan would smile politely, maybe tell a few stories, and keep mildly making his proposal. And after a while, his friendliness would, if not win the other groups over, at least get them to stop screaming, and he'd get some, most, or all of what he wanted. It worked a hell of a lot better than the modern technique of telling the other guy how evil he is.

I digress. Anyway, Kevin Phillips was a big-name Republican back then, and after he and Reagan moved on, the Republicans continued to court fundamentalists, and courted them much more seriously than the Reaganistas had. End result, Phillips is now appalled at what he helped to create, and wrote his book to try to blow the lid off it all. Since that was an interesting background, I decided to read the book.