Posted by Tim Beckwith on February 17, 1999 at 08:41:39:
Excellent! I hope that they and the browser community
pull Speech ML off. If it permits bi-directional
communications between us, the user, and the machine
it should open up a whole new world of opportunity.
Actually, It could be another chapter in the long
going saga of one monopoly toppling another.
I have been feeling for quite some time, that the
organization that comes up with a speech oriented
operating system or browser alternative to an
operating system will take over personal and business
desktop computing in the comming decade.
The entire "Windows" navigational paradigm is obsolete
as soon as you can simply tell your machine what you
want it to do. At least it will be obsolete if we
have not been so conditioned that we verbally tell
our machine to "click on file", so we can further
tell it to "Open file", so that we can then either
type in a file name or tell it to "choose a file".
Phrases like "Bring up the budget", or "Show
me the future committee report" sound much more
natural to me.
As soon as the average web page talks to us and we
get to talk back, all other web pages will seem
flat.
The first Audio Enabled Server/Browser Based Load it
down line each time you use it Word Processor will
blow all of the old fashioned type and click word
processors off the shelves. Or maybe, I should say
that they will be left on the shelves where they
belong. If you have ever tried to creative write
using one of the present day extra full featured
word processors, you would be aware of how much of
you mental energy actually goes into making you
word processor/computer work. It is distracting
to say the least.
Good bye to today's Database interface. We all
really want to just ask our friend a question
and get an answer don't we? Do we really want to
navigate a form or a spreadsheet like picture of
our million customer database?
Gone would be the repetitive motion injuries. At
least this would be true if laryngitis doesn't
become the result. We shouldn't even need to
look so closely at our screens so much of the
time.
Caution should be taken when using voice recognition
for security purposes however. When we are healthy
and not tired, it would probably work pretty well.
Imagine comming to work when you have a sore throat,
because you had to get something done, only to find
that your computer didn't recognize your voice and
wouldn't let you in. I admit, that as a systems
administrator, I would get a kick out of the phone
call that said, "I forgot my voice" instead of "I
can't remember my password".
(Conclusion)
Thank you IBM, for pioneering the way to speech
based applications via the personal computer. I will
enjoy watching this trail as you and others blaze it.