Ask Slashdot: Is There a Useful Voice-Activated PC? (dailycaring.com)

An anonymous reader writes: My elderly monther-in-law misses her computer. Her mind is okay, but she cannot use a computer because of her Parkinson's disease.

I am not all that impressed with Amazon Echo. Seems you can ask the Echo for the time of day, or the weather outside, but it will not do anything useful -- like send an email. A voice controlled PC would be great, even if it only did a few simple tasks.
The original submission ends with a question: "Is there such a thing?" So leave your best thoughts and suggestions in the comments. Is there a useful voice-activated PC?

Comments

Any PC or Mac with a microphone.

[damnbunni]

Windows since XP and MacOS since like... 9.0 have included voice assistive technologies.

You just have to turn them on.

If the OS's built in speech recognition and control don't do what you want, buy a copy of Dragon NaturallySpeaking.

Re:Any PC or Mac with a microphone.

[Master Moose]

I'll be willing to bet the first androids we get will be centrally controlled. Why make their processing self contained when they can use the excuse that they need the processing power only available in their servers to control them.

I'll be willing to bet that very soon most "personal" computing will be centrally controlled with very little processing happening on a users device and most of it being pumped from the vendors servers.

Re:Any PC or Mac with a microphone.

[scdeimos]

The problem is people in general are lazy and do not want to spend the time needed to train the system for each person so we need the raw power of powerful servers to do general voice processing.

We actually don't, you know.

Anyone using Siri can tell you that the local phone screen already displays the text of your query while it's going off to ask Apple's servers what to do, and still displays it when it comes back with "Oops, we seem to be having communication problems. Please try again later."

In other words the speech-to-text conversion has already happened on the phone. Apple's servers are just applying Natural Language Processing techniques on the text to figure out what the request means. This is also something that could happen on the phone, Apple just wants a view into everyone's lives.

iPad, Siri and accessibility features

[k2r]

An iPad with proper accessibility settings and Siri voice recognition.
Iâ(TM)m not a native speaker and Siri does understand me well enough to write proper emails and messages.

https://www.abilitynet.org.uk/...

Re:iPad, Siri and accessibility features

[Brulath]

My dad is in aged care with fairly advanced Parkinson's disease and finds Siri to be entirely unusable due to the tremor in his voice (a common symptom). He uses an iPad to check emails and facebook, send messages, and call people on Skype. I've tried turning Siri off, as he tends to hold the home button long enough to activate it frequently, but pressing the home button just asks you to turn Siri on again (which is not helpful at all). I recently activated the accessibility settings which require him to press longer to "tap" and ignore secondary taps (from shaking hands), which appears to have helped.

She may be able to use her computer with some modifications to the peripherals. There are large keyboards, like this one, which have a perspex shield above them to rest your hands on. To press a key you have to put your finger through the holes in the thick plastic cover, which prevents a shaking arm from accidentally pressing the wrong keys. A trackball mouse is another improvement, as it doesn't require the arm to move precisely and, at least in my dad's case, the fingers are a bit more stable. I was planning to get both for dad, but he doesn't currently have space for them.

Either way, I'd recommend trying to see if Siri or similar can actually understand her consistently before investing in voice technology. You can get a fair way with disability-accessible computer peripherals instead.

Tremor Cancellation

[Anonymous Coward]

Not a direct answer, but perhaps helpful -- there is some promising work being done with tremor compensation/cancellation technology. Strap on a bracelet with a type of vibrator attached and it can stabilize your hand movements, kind of like camera stabilization does for taking pictures.

https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/projects-backed-by-google-and-microsoft-are-tackling-parkinsons-disease/

Dragon NaturallySpeaking

[taxman_10m]

I think that does what you are looking for.

Re:Dragon NaturallySpeaking

[Richard Kirk]

I used to sit next to someone who had RSI so used to Dragon Dictate (as it was then) to do a lot of his keyboard work, which included writing code. On bad dates he could use it to control the mouse too. This is not easy, so it depends on how determined your mother-in-law is. If she has computer skills but has just lost the manual control, then a Dragon product may do the job. If she hasn't handled a computer in some time, so she will be getting used to a new computer, a new OS, and everything else being in the wrong place as well as this new tool, all at once; then it is a big ask.

Re:Dragon NaturallySpeaking

[Zurkeyon3733]

Unfortunately, This would not be the case. Too much physical interaction is still required for it to be "Truly" useful... Being in IT for 28+ years now, I have several customers who are paraplegic for one reason or another. Some have use of their hands, some only minimally. (Cerebral Palsy) My customers who have minimal use of their hands typically type with a special mouse using the on-screen keyboard. As Dragon makes too many mistakes, has too many bugs, and just can't fit the bill consistently enough to meet their needs. Dragon does do some neat things, but as far as every disabled person I have spoken to, they would say it doesn't work well enough to say it "Does what you are looking for" (No trolling or offense intended, just my2. Peace)

Re:Dragon NaturallySpeaking

[arth1]

open thunderird
write now email
---dictate to address
---dictate message
send email

works fine for me

That "works fine for me" is the problem. What works for one person won't work for another. You're technically savvy, with a mind working well enough to remember those specific commands. Those who would benefit the most from such a system might not be.

Some won't remember the exact statements, or their order.
Some won't have a clear enough voice, or one that works in the specific frequency and amplitude range the machine needs[*].
Some can't put on a headset properly.
Some can't see the screen well enough to know whether the computer understood.
Some won't have the patience to go through so many steps.
Some will say other things in-between which throws the voice recognition off.

All those "somes" add up, and it won't work for a large portion of those who would be the most helped if it worked.

[*]: I give up on most voice controlled phone and car systems. My voice is very deep and very soft, and what little makes it past the high-pass filter is frequently misunderstood. It gets really frustrating when the systems have an option to say "human" to speak to a human, but the systems can't even understand that you say "human". Especially if it then tries to throw up a simplified yes/no guessing game, but can't even understand when you say "yes" or "no".

In short, expert systems in general and voice recognition in particular is today a "works for most" that creates an even bigger divide between conformant majorities and minorities that actually need more help.

Best suggest would be to work with Blind organizat

[oxnyx]

Having spent a certain amount of time with disability offices I suggest that you go and find a local Blind Association and see if they can allow her to test out some of the software written for blind people. Jaws is a software that allows you too hear in one ear what's on the screen and what you're typing in the other ear might be more difficult than your mother-in-law can manage. The other thing is that this will probably help her get access two other entertainments such as audio books and people in a similar condition to commiserate. What you're looking for is probably not an out-of-the-box solution sold at the General Market but something you're going to find it's a little more expensive but there's probably a grant for it.

Re:It has to work OFFLINE to make sense.

[Mascot]

How is "it has to work offline" an answer to the question of whether there are functional solutions for voice controlling things like sending emails and other basic PC usage scenarios?

I don't know the elderly woman in question, but my bet would be that she cares _a lot_ more about whether or not she can make the solution do what she needs, than whether or not it is offline or online. Either way, that's her call.

Would need to use command words more accurately.

[deviated_prevert]

The problem with voice activated commands to effectively use web sites like facebook, is that there is no web specific way of selecting functions on standard web page even with HTML5. However I am sure that they are working on it at facebook. If they do release a facebook specific browser with a function audio command structure for a front end that remains static then it may become entirely possible to surf the site. Google chrome does surf by audio and is operating system agnostic unlike Siri which is apples pie in the sky attempt at market dominance or Cortana which is Microsoft's answer to Google chrome and Siri.

The overwhelming problem with all of these speech recognition interfaces is that web sites are not coded for key word searches and every website on the planet would most likely screw up the idea of using a keyword search structure. Again it all comes down to language and the fact that the complexity involved in obtaining fine grained results from key words in combinations interpolated by a computer is an enormous task that is fraught with the possibility of error.

Not to shill for Apple, but...

[Narcocide]

Mac OS X has had this feature for nearly 20 years.

Dragon/dragonfly

[arnott]

You can train your PC to do that. I use dragon naturally speaking with dragonfly python scripting. There are many python libraries which are built on dragonfly, which do the job.

Caster is a good one. Check these tutorials.

You will need to spend some time to understand how things work and train your mother-in-law to use the customized voice commands.

Search for "dragon naturally speaking demo" on YouTube to see what others do.

Yes. Try Nuance products (e.g. Dragon, etc.)

[aussersterne]

I have a friend who is a quadriplegic and lives in an electric chair. He is also a software engineer and very active on Facebook. Last time I knew the details of his setup he was using Dragon, I believe. As I understand it, it's fully customizable, i.e. you get to tie particular voice commands that you choose to particular actions, widgets, keystrokes, etc.

It took him a year or three to get it all customized to his liking for everything, but at this point he basically rolls around and uses the laptop attached to the deck on his chair in front of him nonstop. He's got a bunch of IoT/smart home stuff set up at home and in his office as well, he provided directions and his wife set it all up under his supervision.

The result is that he basically has a workable voice interface to the Internet, his IDE, Windows, and also most of his immediate physical surroundings, so that he lives a fairly normal life, apart from bodily functions and eating, which he obviously needs help with. But most everything else, from rolling around/chair control to lights and blinds and doors and windows and locks to television and computer and work he does by himself, without any movement in his limbs, using voice.

All off-the-shelf stuff as far as I know, they're very middle class and bog standard insurance, no huge budget, just a lot of his expertise and his wife's hands to set it all up over the years.

Re:Several are useful.

[VanessaE]

Benny: Please disable the shield systems.
Computer: Of course. There are no movies in your area with that title.

[... a few minutes and many comparable misunderstandings later ...]

Benny: Disable the shield! Come on! You are undermining me!
Computer: Which phrase would you like me to underline?
Benny: Disable the shield!
Metal Beard: Let me try.
Metal Beard: Be ye disabling of yond shield.
Computer: Disabling shield.
Benny: What?!