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Domain: wildfire.com

Stories and comments across the archive that link to wildfire.com.

Comments · 6

  1. Wildfire by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on TuVox Voice Interface

    I've had wildfire as my voicemail system on my Orange mobile for over 2 years now and it works just great. It's especially useful whilst in the car on a hands-free kit. I have no idea if any other GSM networks use this yet- or if Orange even offer it on their networks outside the UK. http://www.orange.co.uk/wildfire http://www.wildfire.com

    A.D.

  2. Re:what will define a "standard"? by tchapin · · Score: 1 · on W3C Seeks Feedback on VoiceXML
    Well, VoiceXML isn't necessarily going to be used to "voice-enable" web pages. It's also going to be used to replace propriatary speech recognition telephony systems. There are a few companies out there that are doing this already:

    VoiceGenie, Telera, and TellMe.

    Browsing the web using speech for both input and output is stupid because of the limitations of human memory and the serial nature of how we perceive sound. Better alternatives are to speech enable processes, such as buying things or finding out information.

    I could see controlling a web page by voice. With a VXML enabled web site, you could conceivable make each link a voice command, which would then control the browser GUI. I mean, imaging having ./ read back to you!

    On a slightly different angle, it'd be great to have a system at home that did something like Wildfire.

    Todd

  3. Background noise by cmclean · · Score: 3 · on Starship Troopers: Exoskeletons and Translators

    Having used a voicemail service which relies on voice-recognition for a couple of years now, I've been regularly annoyed at the fact that the slightest background noise (i.e. the sound made by the planet revolving) throws the recognition all to hell. How this new translation system will cope with background noise along the lines of tanks/APCs, choppers, gunfire, screaming locals etc. will a real test of it's useability IMO.

  4. Not just yet by matthew.thompson · · Score: 3 · on Berners-Lee On The Semantic Web
    This utopian information access idea is great in principle but at the moment we just don't have the always on style internet access available.

    A similar idea is being touted by Orange whose grand plan is to use an always on mobile terminal device with their Wildfire personal assistant who will listen to your day and arrange things to happen, inform you of information and collate calls and messages wether they are voicemail, email or faxes.

    But until we have the always on alway connected devices we're still going to be pretty much tethered to our desks.

  5. A dead end? by Animats · · Score: 2 · on Toolkit Available For WAP programming
    I have the feeling that WAP is headed for the same trash can as push technology, micropayments, talking cars, and rings with embedded Java processors. Face it, trying to do anything useful via one or two square inches of screen real estate is sheer misery. Imagine trying to make an airline reservation that way. I think progress in cell phones should be made by improving voice input (see Wildfire) rather than by building a web browser into the thing.

    Two killer portable ideas of mine, one easy, one hard:

    • A rubberized, ruggedized, waterproof cell phone. Call it the "sport phone"; maybe make it bright yellow. Teenagers and outdoor workers need it; many others would buy it. Eliminate the need for a carrying case to protect the thing. Radios, cordless phones, and walkie-talkies are available like that, but for some reason, not cell phones.
    • A phone in the form factor of a pen. That's a little beyond the state of the art, but it can't be that far away. Voice input, no buttons or screen. Suits would go for it.
    Go for it, portable hardware types.
  6. Voice recognition can be pretty reliable by thalakan · · Score: 1 · on Feature:The Two Towers

    Actually, one of my friends is an electrical engineer, and he was telling me about this nifty device that UPS wanted built to save them next Christmas...

    Turns out that Dragon Systems had a bunch of their people port their voice recognition engine to the StrongARM-110 platform running VXworks, and UPS kept throwing money at the project until they were getting 4 or 5 nines (99.999%!) reliability. No more mobile keypads! The device was intended for use in the UPS regional distribution centers, where it's pretty noisy, but some guys on the project wrote all sorts of nifty audio filters to remove all the crap from the signal. Turns out that they can get extremely reliable voice input using a 30 cent electret headset mic :)

    I've also seen similar technology used in the WildFire platform; they wrote their own ridiculously expensive audio filters for a really moby computer telephony agent called WildFire. I've gotten very reliable results yelling into my cell phone, in a bowling alley, on league night, during fleet week...

    The problem is that all these solutions are too damn expensive (6, 7 digits) for the sort of work you're thinking about doing, unless you want to put together a Silicon Valley startup, heavily commercialize the idea, and partner with one of those companies.