The Future Computer 6

[ajetrumpet]

Anyone want to comment on the computer environment that we saw in "Minority Report"? The stock market wizards seem to think that this is the next big step for interface. Anyone think we'll get there soon? An interface based on the user's hand motions?? I see voice recognition as the next "kick", that still has a long way to go, like the "Demolition Man" movie!

-J

 

[dilettante]

I can barely type consistently as it is.

I can't imagine the gestural nuances required to make hand motions a rich input interface. I'd think it at least as complex as learning to play a theremin expressively and with grace.

 

[timw]

An interface based on the user's hand motions??

On the Wii perhaps?

Tim

 

[Grenage]

The technology has around for years, but finding a practical use for it is a different matter.

Carlsberg don't run I.T. departments, but if they did they'd probably be more fun.

 

[Sympology]

The flaw with Voice recognistion is a simple one, language & dialect.

It's all well and good setting it up to speak "english" i.e usually a californian or Southern American "English" but how will it cope with a UK Geordie or Cockney accent, let alone a Jamacian accent. Yes you can program it, but who wants to spend days repeating yourself for it to get most words right?

It will fail for many, many years.

Only the truly stupid believe they know everything.
Stu.. 2004

 

[dgrewe]

Hmmmmmmmmmm

"No One will ever need a Personal Computer with more then 64mb of Memory" Bill Gates 1974

I still remember the Star Trek Movie where the crew saved the Whales (and Earth) and Scotty tried to program a c
computer by talking to it. But was Forced to type on a keyboard because the Mouse was not a microphone. "How Quant, A Keyboard" He said.

Techlology advances, Where would we be without it


David W. Grewe Dave

 

[Opieo]

Well, there is that laser sensor keyboard deal where it projects the keyboard onto the desk and you "type" by touching the "keys". It senses where you are pressing.
If they combined something like that with the wii motion sensing, it seems like there would be a way to be able to type and move stuff by waving your arms in the air.



~
Give a man some fire, he will be warm for a day, Set a man on fire, he will be warm for the rest of his life.

 

[ajetrumpet]

Did Gates really say that!? You would think a business man of any kind would realize how much information needs to be filed to business in general. Most of those requirements come from government policy...how could someone like him make such an assumption, with all the success he's had!? Maybe he was talking about a PERSONAL computer. People really don't NEED more than that for personal use, but business is a different story!

I don't know about the Wii....its a simple program, and its got a prop! Think its capable of handling and entire OS?

I've never seen the keyboards that detect motion, has anyone used those rubber-type keyboards, I guess they're supposed to reduce the chances tendonitis or something, I've used something similiar, for one thing, IT'S QUIET!!!

-J

 

[stefanwagner]

The flaw with voice recognistion is a simple one, indeed:
Nobody likes to brabble 8h per day.

Companies would need one room per employee without telephone and radio.

don't visit my homepage:

http://home.arcor.de/hirnstrom/bewerbung

 

[Grenage]

He did indeed say that, admittedly a naive but they tended to program properly back then.

Carlsberg don't run I.T. departments, but if they did they'd probably be more fun.

 

[Stella740pl]

StuReeves,

The flaw with Voice recognistion is a simple one, language & dialect.

I am glad you said that.

stefanwagner,
Ditto.

I live in USA, but English is not my first language.

I don't have enough words to explain just HOW MUCH I hate stupid voice recognition systems. It's not that bad when What they expect from me are the whole words. But when I need to spell out a customer ID and then the code of the charge from my credit card statement to cancel a magazine subscription, it gets ugly, especially if no live person is available. Even worse that no human support is available in the evening hours, when I can call from home. So I still have to repeat myself many times from work until the system gives up and forwards my call to representative. That is ugly. Besides, I feel stupid talking to a machine. Don't you?

Do you anybody so excited about voice recognition really want their coworkers to talk to their computers all day long? Is the phone and live conversations around still not enough noise for you? Do you really want to seat on a plane, train bus next to a person with a voice recognition laptop? Would you want yourself to talk all day long and everyone around to hear what exactly you are doing?

Not me.

The only useful application for voice recognition would be home computers for vision impaired people.

 

[ajetrumpet]

Even worse that no human support is available in the evening hours, when I can call from home

No kidding! Is there a trend in this country, for corporations to be closed on the weekends now? I remember not too many years back you get live help from corporate call centers almost 24/7. Are we becomming like Europe now, reducing our work hours?
Nothing would be wrong with sitting next someone using a full voice recognition laptop. A lot of people that use cellphones today use them to look busy, and unless they're reasonable, also include you in their conversations weather you want to be or not! =)

-J

 

[Stella740pl]

Is there a trend in this country, for corporations to be closed on the weekends now?

I don't know if there is a trend. It depends on the nature and the size of the company, I guess.


A lot of people that use cellphones today use them to look busy

Or maybe they really need to call someone (like, say, a boss) and let them know they are running late, or check on a young child left with someone else or an older child left alone, or set up a meeting with someone to save time, or many other things that may look to you like a useless chat to just look busy.

But most phone conversations take minutes, and working on the laptop takes hours.

 

[ajetrumpet]

Good point...

Ever witnessed a person talking on a phone to look busy? If that's really what they're doing, they usually make it painstakingly obvious to those people around them...

 

[jsteph]

Currently the voice-response systems which I've dealt with are very simple--they can tell a "Yes" from a "No", and understand 10 digits in your chosen language.

But as far as reliably understanding a stream-of-consciousness from someone trying to voice-in a letter to their Word doc, it's really unreliable for the reasons mentioned in previous posts.

OCR isn't even reliable, and that's something that you'd think *should* be feasible to attain near-perfection.

On a similar note, we here suffer with a frustrating 'report writer' that claims to understand typed english phrases. For example, you type "List all customers in Chicago", and it's supposed to convert that to correct SQL. But it's so imperfect and fickle that our users have gone to many training classes and it still requires more thought than simply learning SQL.

Sometimes low-tech is better.
--Jim

 

[burtsbees]

I'm still trying to learn how to navigate Windows 98.

Burt

 

[harebrain]

"No One will ever need a Personal Computer with more then 64mb of Memory" Bill Gates 1974

Actually, he really said 64kb.

See, it seems so absurd now that you can't even think to type it correctly.

 

[burtsbees]

My first computer was a Timex Sinclair 1000, with 4KB RAM. I got the 12KB expansion cartridge, which expanded it to 16KB RAM, so that I could play my flight simulator game. It was a bunch of blocks that were about 1/4" X 1/4", red, black, green and blue, the monitor was a 19" black and white television set, and I loaded the programs from what was the newest technology---a cassette tape player. The flight simulator took 8 minutes to load. That was 1979.

Burt

 

[ajetrumpet]

Burt,

do you work as a programmer? What did you say about Windows 98!? Having a bit of trouble linking those two together.

BurtsBees is one of the hottest selling items in the retail world...

-J

FAQ219-2884: How Do I Get Great Answers To my Tek-Tips Questions?

 

[ajetrumpet]

The hottest thing in distribution right now is voice recognition...
It is by now means sophisticated, but it does cut down the amount of distraction for the warehouse workers. The one I had worked with was an exact copy of the coding used for the previous software system. It was like someone voice coded every word on every single page (like all 10 of them) you would see on your computer during the distribution process. It was of no use...but it sure was cool!