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Super-small Voice-controlled Wireless Phone
The phone comes in two pieces, (much like other cordless phones). The earset weighs only 1.1oz (including the lithium polymer battery, smaller than a pack of gum), and only has a single button on it. The base station plugs into your analog phone line, and connects to your computer via USB. The included software runs a custom copy of IBM's ViaVoice speech engine to interpret your voice commands; right now the software only runs on Windows.
The software integrates into Outlook, ACT! and Windows Address Book. At boot-up, the software looks at the list of contacts, and loads their names into a custom speech dictionary. If you want to call John Public, you press the button on the earset and say "Call John Public at work." The software matches your speech to John's name, looks up John's information, finds his Work number, and dials it for you. (Very cool). Dialing by numbers is done by pressing the button, and saying "Dial" and announcing the digits you want to dial, (i.e. "Dial one eight-hundred five five five one two one two").
All the other telephone functions are also handled via voice command, (answer, hang up, flash, mute, hold, volume, etc).
Right now the software only works with telephony functions, but they have just released an add-on package that lets you use the phone as a wireless headset for your computer, (for voice-dictation, IP Telephony, other voice-recognition software, etc). They say they want to extend the software to handle home-automation and entertainment, (can anyone say voice-controlled X10?!?)
The phones are priced at $300, which is targeted at the business crowd. It's a little steep for home use.
I happened to find a deal on mine, and have been using it for about a month now. I work out of my home for a software company on the other side of the country. It is very handy to be able to talk to my co-workers simply by saying their name. The size and form factor are also very nice. I can wear it around all day, and am able to take a call from anywhere near the house, (office, back deck, breakfast table, neighbor's house, changing a diaper, etc).
I know this doesn't have much to do w/ Linux, but the geek in me couldn't keep my mouth shut! I thought this might be an interesting story, simply for the application of voice technology and miniaturization.
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If it requires Windows to run, then its really not a seperate product is it? Its more of just an add-on for Windows?
If its useless without a particular brand of some other product, then its useless.
What would be even better is a cellular phone that would double as a regular cordless when in range of its base station. This way when you are in the confines of your own home the phone could be used on your regular line saving you cell phone fees. Maybe they could get really slick and make the cell and the home numbers the same so you could cary it with you at all times and never need to deal with multiple numbers.
I find it always amusing, that people demand at least 95% reliability from speech recoqnition, when they themselves do not always succeed in it. When people hear words, they often think about them in combinations and context, to deduce what they really meant.
Speech recognition, as used here, is used to figure out atomic words, such as names and numbers. At least I myself often get these wrong (when spoken to me) and need to ask again if I heard correctly.
1. What happens when you need to use an automated system? "Press 1 for ...." ?
2. I thought the whole point of pressing a mute button was to be discrete about it. Not yell "MUTE!" into the ear of the person you -don't- want to hear you.
3. "So, I was standing there, then there's this great flash of light, and in the muted silence that followed...."
How does it know that I didn't just want to a) switch lines and b) shut off my mouthpiece?
>as having the phone actually right next to your ear like that all the time would probably give you cancer.
Well, first off, the radio radiation given off by cellphones is extremely small, to say the least, and because its so small its extremely difficult to prove that there's any link between cellphone use and cancer that actually involves the use of the cellphone, and not the lifestyle of people who can afford cellphones.
Next, a portable phone like this would probably come under the sub 100 mW transmission laws in the US. Cellphones transmit 700 mW to 3000 mW of power, which means that if (for example) 1 sq in. of your face were exposed to the radio waves, you would have to hold the cellphone over 3 inches from your face. This makes a huge difference.
So don't worry about getting cancer from your portable phone. It just isn't powerful enough to matter!
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
that the Submitter's name links to the "Arialphone User's Group"? Is it not completely obvious that this crappy Arialphone company is responsible for this post, and might have even PAID slashdot to post it???