The Coming Wave of Gadgets That Listen and Obey

dgan brings us a NYTimes piece about the development of speech recognition for common gadgets. Companies such as Vlingo and Yap are marketing their software to cellular carriers to give consumers a hands-free option for tasks like finding directions and text messaging. Quoting: "Vlingo's service lets people talk naturally, rather than making them use a limited number of set phrases. Dave Grannan, the company's chief executive, demonstrated the Vlingo Find application by asking his phone for a song by Mississippi John Hurt (try typing that with your thumbs), for the location of a local bakery and for a Web search for a consumer product. It was all fast and efficient. Vlingo is designed to adapt to the voice of its primary user, but I was also able to use Mr. Grannan's phone to find an address. The Find application is in the beta test phase at AT&T and Sprint. Consumers who use certain cellphones from those companies can download the application from vlingo.com."

Comments

It may finally happen.

[moogied]

5,000 years ago man relized it could not make women listen and obey. So he started a quest to make devices that could..

Is it possible that all of mankinds dreams are coming true now?!

All I can think of is...

[bennomatic]

"Open the pod bay doors, HAL."

"I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave."

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Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:I wonder...

[lgw]

I can't get over this "hands free text messaging" option! What engineer had the insight "we need to give customers a way to communicate over the phone just by talking"? It's a strange world.