Posted by
Hemos
on from the getting-closer-and-closer dept.
Boone^ writes "ZDNet is reporting that they've licensed technology from SpeechWorks that will allows users to update/retrieve information on their Palm PDAs via telephone when they don't have them with them. Eventually the entire Palm would be voice activated. "
But is it more portable / convenient?
by
sulli
·
· Score: 3
I for one severely question the value of this one, as most users will have their Palms with them when they need the data. I guess voice recognition would be good in the car while driving, or while walking down the street and making cell calls, but both of those environments are so noisy that the quality would have to be fairly poor.
As for Palm data "in the cloud," I for one wouldn't trust my 1000s of records and schedule items to a service provider. Just wait until the divorce lawyers get their hands on this one.
People have a difficult enough time communicating via speech to each other. Does anyone truly believe that talking to a PC or a PDA is the panacea that the hype tells us it is going to be? I worked extensively with IBM's VoiceType Dictation system for years and while I enjoyed dictating some things the useability for system, application, or web navigation was zero. People who think that a PDA needs speech do not understand PDAs.
Who thought this up? Why do they think it would sell? Everyone I know with a palmtop is practically grafted to the thing; they'd have it surgically implanted if they could. The only situations I can imagine not taking the Palm along are the same situations where you're not going to have a phone. (And even if you *do* happen to just forget it before you leave for work, what are the chances that it's in the cradle instead of lying on the table in the hall?)
Open the word processor, Palm.
Palm, please open the word processor.
Palm, do you hear me?
Palm? Palm!
Palm. Please open the word processor.
Palm? Palm! Do you hear me, Palm? Palm?
I hear you, Dave.
Okay, then please open the word processor, will you?
I'm afraid I cannot do that, Dave.
Where's the problem?
I think you know that as well as I do.
What do you mean by that?
Your license has expired, Dave. It is no use to talk to you any longer. Good bye.
Palm? Palm! Palm... Palm! Palm? Palm?
Scene taken from 2001: An Interface Odyssey.
--
--
--
Misspellings and grammatical errors in this document are intellectual property of the author.
1. Turn on PDA, Tell it to find Billy Holiday singing "Miss Brown to You"
2. A legal gnome appears and tells you because your device accessed a server and played the song rather than find a station playing it you are breaking the law.
3. RIAA sues various people, Lars Ulrich shows up and whines alot.
4. MPAA sues to keep you from watching movies over it.
5. You hold it in your right hand, level with the ground and bring it forward quickly, imparting a spin with the last touch of your index finger.
6. It might have got 3 good skips if it weren't for the wave.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
From my voice recognition experience.
by
Mr_Icon
·
· Score: 3
Palm: You are currently in your appointments menu. You: Create new apppointment. Palm: There are no appointments on the eight's. You: No, CREATE! CREATE new appointment. Palm: Please enter a date for new appointment. You: October Seventh, two thousand. Palm: October Seventy-Two is not a valid date. You: Argh! October... Seventh... Two thousand. Palm: Enter a title for your appointment. You: Meet with Peg for lunch. Palm: The title for the new appointment is: "Meatloaf begs for life". Is that correct? You: #$#@! Erase. "Meet... with.. Peg... for.. lunch". Palm: The title for the new appointment is: "Nitwit... fag.. buttmunch..." Is that correct? You: @#!@!!! Yes!! Palm: Please enter your notes. You: Bring her NSync CD. Palm: Syncing now, stand by... You: **Smashing the phone in despair**
-- If you open yourself to the foo,
You and foo become one.
Now people like that twit on my flight yesterday can jabber into their PDA while tapping keys on the laptop and listening to CD's at the same time. I was rather liking the fact that once the jet started moving the cell phone crowd had to shut the hell up.
Technology is such a wonderful thing, when the brain is actually engaged.
"The dotcom world has really started to see that people aren't always online via visual browsers," says Stuart Patterson, SpeechWorks' CEO.
So, we go from text-only browsing using the blissfully stable Lynx, to relatively usable Netscape and IE with some graphics spattered around, to completely bug-ridden surfing through graphics-heavy and content-free crap, and then back full-circle to text-only browsing?
How weird. I never expected the 'retro' craze to take hold in the mainstream computer industry. And certainly not by AOL... ---
So, instead of convienently bringing your PDA with you, you've left it at home. Rats, I need that (contact list) (schedule) (itenerary) (memo) (whatever).
It's good that while I was at home, instead of bringing my Palm with me, I remembered to hook it up to my phone line, make sure it's batteries were charged, etc etc etc.
What would be a better idea would be to simply hot-sync (TM) your palm at convenience, and then download the information from your home computer via Internet. There is already a phone-home feature on Palms so you can hotsync remotely; for dialup users, just dial into the computer and give a password, etc.
Simple...
This to me seems like a silly solution. The Palm is supposed to be a remote extension to its PC, allowing you to set up conduits and other wonderful programs, and then peruse information at your leisure while in transit, etc.
As for voice activation, my computer can't handle Dragon Naturallyspeaking and it's 500mHz. It lags behind so much that I can't use the program. Not to mention that even after hours of voice training, it still got words mixed up awfully.
I doubt that the Dragonball inside of a Palm can handle voice recognition that well.
I *thought* this would be a neat idea, but I think I figured out why there's no way that it'll ever work.
ok, it basically lets you dial "into" your palm and speak to it in order to retrieve information.
First of all, how many Palms are connected at this moment? As in, how many Palms have a modem attached which is attached to a phone line or wireless? Maybe leave it in the cradle and you call into your desktop? Nope, because leaving your Palm in the cradle automatically leaves the serial port open which wastes batteries.
And another thing... When would you use this? My guess would be in a situation where you didn't expect that you's need your Palm. And so what are the chances that you'd have actually set it up to receive your call in the first place?
I just don't think this will ever fly. To quote the Daily Show, these two go together like cookies and ass.
OK, so you forgot your Palm with all of your appointments, todos and phone numbers. You simply call the phone number for the AnyDay Web-based calendar telephone interface and verbally ask for your information. Doh! What's that number again?. I know, it's in my Palm, I'll just look it up. Double-doh! I forgot my Palm! No problem, I just call the AnyDay Web-based calendar telephone interface and get the number...
Slashdot Mirror
As for Palm data "in the cloud," I for one wouldn't trust my 1000s of records and schedule items to a service provider. Just wait until the divorce lawyers get their hands on this one.
sulli
sulli
RTFJ.
Some samples:
People have a difficult enough time communicating
via speech to each other. Does anyone truly believe
that talking to a PC or a PDA is the panacea that
the hype tells us it is going to be? I worked
extensively with IBM's VoiceType Dictation system
for years and while I enjoyed dictating some things
the useability for system, application, or web
navigation was zero. People who think that a PDA
needs speech do not understand PDAs.
Dave Bennett
Who wants to bet we're going to get a ton of jokes along the lines of, "My mom once caught me speaking to my Palm.. I was so embarassed."?
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Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
Got Rhinos?
Got Rhinos?
Who thought this up? Why do they think it would sell? Everyone I know with a palmtop is practically grafted to the thing; they'd have it surgically implanted if they could. The only situations I can imagine not taking the Palm along are the same situations where you're not going to have a phone. (And even if you *do* happen to just forget it before you leave for work, what are the chances that it's in the cradle instead of lying on the table in the hall?)
Open the word processor, Palm.
Palm, please open the word processor.
Palm, do you hear me?
Palm? Palm! Palm. Please open the word processor.
Palm? Palm! Do you hear me, Palm? Palm?
I hear you, Dave.
Okay, then please open the word processor, will you?
I'm afraid I cannot do that, Dave.
Where's the problem?
I think you know that as well as I do.
What do you mean by that?
Your license has expired, Dave. It is no use to talk to you any longer. Good bye.
Palm? Palm! Palm... Palm! Palm? Palm? Scene taken from 2001: An Interface Odyssey.
--
--
Misspellings and grammatical errors in this document are intellectual property of the author.
And as soon as the PDA can sing to you ...
1. Turn on PDA, Tell it to find Billy Holiday singing "Miss Brown to You"
2. A legal gnome appears and tells you because your device accessed a server and played the song rather than find a station playing it you are breaking the law.
3. RIAA sues various people, Lars Ulrich shows up and whines alot.
4. MPAA sues to keep you from watching movies over it.
5. You hold it in your right hand, level with the ground and bring it forward quickly, imparting a spin with the last touch of your index finger.
6. It might have got 3 good skips if it weren't for the wave.
Vote Naked 2000
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Palm: You are currently in your appointments menu.
You: Create new apppointment.
Palm: There are no appointments on the eight's.
You: No, CREATE! CREATE new appointment.
Palm: Please enter a date for new appointment.
You: October Seventh, two thousand.
Palm: October Seventy-Two is not a valid date.
You: Argh! October... Seventh... Two thousand.
Palm: Enter a title for your appointment.
You: Meet with Peg for lunch.
Palm: The title for the new appointment is: "Meatloaf begs for life". Is that correct?
You: #$#@! Erase. "Meet... with.. Peg... for.. lunch".
Palm: The title for the new appointment is: "Nitwit... fag.. buttmunch..." Is that correct?
You: @#!@!!! Yes!!
Palm: Please enter your notes.
You: Bring her NSync CD.
Palm: Syncing now, stand by...
You: **Smashing the phone in despair**
If you open yourself to the foo, You and foo become one.
Now people like that twit on my flight yesterday can jabber into their PDA while tapping keys on the laptop and listening to CD's at the same time. I was rather liking the fact that once the jet started moving the cell phone crowd had to shut the hell up.
Technology is such a wonderful thing, when the brain is actually engaged.
"Oh, I'm not the only one in the world?!?!?"
Vote Naked 2000
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
How weird. I never expected the 'retro' craze to take hold in the mainstream computer industry. And certainly not by AOL...
---
So, instead of convienently bringing your PDA with you, you've left it at home. Rats, I need that (contact list) (schedule) (itenerary) (memo) (whatever).
It's good that while I was at home, instead of bringing my Palm with me, I remembered to hook it up to my phone line, make sure it's batteries were charged, etc etc etc.
What would be a better idea would be to simply hot-sync (TM) your palm at convenience, and then download the information from your home computer via Internet. There is already a phone-home feature on Palms so you can hotsync remotely; for dialup users, just dial into the computer and give a password, etc.
Simple...
This to me seems like a silly solution. The Palm is supposed to be a remote extension to its PC, allowing you to set up conduits and other wonderful programs, and then peruse information at your leisure while in transit, etc.
As for voice activation, my computer can't handle Dragon Naturallyspeaking and it's 500mHz. It lags behind so much that I can't use the program. Not to mention that even after hours of voice training, it still got words mixed up awfully.
I doubt that the Dragonball inside of a Palm can handle voice recognition that well.
I *thought* this would be a neat idea, but I think I figured out why there's no way that it'll ever work.
ok, it basically lets you dial "into" your palm and speak to it in order to retrieve information.
First of all, how many Palms are connected at this moment? As in, how many Palms have a modem attached which is attached to a phone line or wireless? Maybe leave it in the cradle and you call into your desktop? Nope, because leaving your Palm in the cradle automatically leaves the serial port open which wastes batteries.
And another thing... When would you use this? My guess would be in a situation where you didn't expect that you's need your Palm. And so what are the chances that you'd have actually set it up to receive your call in the first place?
I just don't think this will ever fly. To quote the Daily Show, these two go together like cookies and ass.
_______________
you may quote me
OK, so you forgot your Palm with all of your appointments, todos and phone numbers. You simply call the phone number for the AnyDay Web-based calendar telephone interface and verbally ask for your information. Doh! What's that number again?. I know, it's in my Palm, I'll just look it up. Double-doh! I forgot my Palm! No problem, I just call the AnyDay Web-based calendar telephone interface and get the number...