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Opera Promises Voice-Operated Web Browser
unassimilatible writes "Opera's latest browser talks and listens, according to AP.
The new browser incorporates IBM's ViaVoice technology, enabling the computer to ask what the user wants and "listen" to the request. "Hi. I am your browser. What can I do for you?" asked a laptop with the demonstration versions of the browser. The message can be personalized, such as greeting users by name. The computer learns to recognize users' voices, accents and inflections by having them read a list of words into a microphone. Opera plans to first launch an English version of the voice browser for computers running the Windows operating system. Versions for other systems, including handhelds, will follow. Opera's press release has more details, including Opera's hopes that people will adopt this technology for presentations - and to replace PowerPoint."
"Computer...Take me to the pr0n!!"
What could I possibly have to say to my browser?
Now the jerk in the cubicle next to me will talk both with himself, "the fairies" and his browser.
*speak it* h t t p : / / slash dot . org
Voice input and output.. that'll make it a lot harder to discreetly search for pr0n whilst at work.
Computer: "Hi. I am your browser. What can I do for you?"
User: [whispering]Find me "porn"...
Computer: "The band KoRn was formed in 1993 by Jonathan Davis and..."
User: NO! [whispering] Not "KoRn"; "porn".
Computer: "Clogged pores are the major cause of adolescent acne. Starting at puber..."
User: NOT "PORE", DAMMIT!!! [coughs, lowers voice] find me "porn"..
Computer: "Iron Ore is the primary ingredient in steel. Metalurgists will add other elements and compounds to give the steel certain proper..."
User: NOT "ORE", YOU PIECE OF SHIT! [office mates look over cubes] [whispers] Look.. I want to look at naked people..
Computer: "The goatse.cx lawyer has informed us that we need a warning! So.. if you are under the age of 18 or find this photograph offensive, please don't look at it. Thank you!"
Trolling is a art,
"Is this the real life, is this just fantasy..."
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
You know damn well this is the first obvious add-on.
I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't load that.
Well for some of us the major work out a day is mouse gestures and keyboard pecks. I guess now I'll have to actually get up to burn off that Big Mac with extra value fries.
Sig removed by order of FBI Patriot ACT
" I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that"
The original generic sig.
How complicated can you make a browser?
I mean, tabbed browsing is cool, I've gotten used to it. But stuff like mouse gestures, voice recognition, etc, all just seems like fluff.
One could have mapped spoken keywords to mouse/keyboard actions already if this is what they wanted.
It's a hard arena to innovate in. This just seems kind of silly.
What's next, support for force feedback chairs that scroll the browser based on which ass cheek I'm clenching?
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
...it's all well and good. but can the speech recongnition module parsebork? if so, it will be the ultimate presentation tool:
"Now gentlemen, pleese-a turn your ettenteeon to-a sleede-a twelve-a. bork!bork!bork!"
"Dubya Dubya Dubya period white house period gov" ;-)
(note to dems, i'm not a troll, i'm canadian)
-
browser plugin listens to you.
I'm sorry, but I had to do it just once.
Sigs are bad for your health.
Computer: Would you like to play a game?
User: I want to play thermonuclear war.
Computer: Wouldn't you rather play a nice game of chess?
User: No goddammit, I want to nuke, not puke!
-- There is no spoon. Only fork.
Absolutely - using Dragon Dictate I once asked my browser to go to hotmail.com... I ended up at hotmale.com and that phrase has now become my test for dictation software!!
I hope it nows its hotmail.com and not some gay porn site.
Voice is the most natural and effective way we communicate...
Psht. And wrong, too. The most natural and effective way we communicate is through body language.
Give me a ring when they invent a web browser that scrolls down when it sees my eyes get to a certain part of the page, or clicks "back" when it sees my jaw slack in boredom.
Or, better yet, automatically browses to another, non-porn, page while the girlfriend/boss is still walking down the hall...
There are many words in the English language that have homophones.
Eye for won due knot sea awl aught of miss takes re: salting from hoe mow phones. Inn fact, eye am you sing the pro gram write now.
I have had some success with "hardware", though. The other night I called home and asked my daughter to tell me the address of a shopping mall I was looking for. She googled it, clicked around, and a few seconds I had the address. That's the kind of thing I wish voice recognition apps could do!
Imagine, during a presentation, being able to yell "If you look at the sales figures damn Sales Figures *hark* S A L E S F I G U R E S GODDAMNIT GIVE ME A SLIDE YOU SORRY REASON FOR A BROWSER for the year..." ... :-)
Farnsworth: "Shut up friends! My internet browser heard us saying the word Fry and it found a movie about Philip J. Fry for us. It also opened my calendar to Friday and ordered me some french fries."
3ACV04 - Luck of the fryish
Sailors. Oh man!
I remember back when the Mac first got voice-activated menus (over 10 years ago), our secretary liked them... so whenever we were passing by her office, we'd stick our head in and say "select - all files - move - trash - yes" (or whatever the magic sequence was) by way of greeting. :-)
Be faithful to your obsessions. Identify them and be faithful to them, let them guide you like a sleepwalker. JG Ballard
Are you sure it's a good idea to have presentation software that actually responds to comments shouted out by hecklers in the audience?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney