Voice control has some potential but I think it is one of those technologies that should be a complement to existing input mechanisms (ie keyboard and mouse).
eg. When doing my normal work I want to use keyboard and mouse as it is more efficient and flexible. Then the phone rings, I pick it up and shortly into the conversation I realise that this is going to be a longer conversation. At which point I just say "computer, save document" rather than having to go back to the keyboard and mouse to do so.
I think they may have copied the idea from us. Take a look at this page http://www.engcom.net/component/option,com_grid/Itemid,59/
It never really took off on our site (most likely because we never got a critical mass of visitors, but that's another story). Still if they did, it's gratifying to see the idea taken and implemented successfully. (Also, if they did then some recognition would be nice)
They were also considering testing mice but they were worried that they may stumble onto something very scary (and also that the Hitchhikers guide might be correct)
While I don't think MacGyver is the best example. I agree with you that we need more focus on thinking and improvising and creativity in our teaching. I don't know what the rest of the world is like but here in Australia we are increasingly teaching to the exam, in what I guess you could call recipe teaching. Students no longer have an understanding of the material, nor a desire to understand the material, they instead know how to regurgitate recipes for things and this behaviour gets reinforced when they get good grades for doing such.
Bringing more English into Science and Maths would be a great way to foster those attitudes within students. Exploring not only an idea but the background behind it (how it was discovered/derived/etc) and how it's applied in the real world would be good for inspiring students.
This could indeed be true. But I'm wondering if it goes further. I wonder what the possibility is that this was an experiment observe just how people are analysing this information and the patterns in which it would spread.
Which would be useful information to know for various reasons.
well you may be right on the power side of things, but no on the cost I would have thought. Those PS3's aren't exactly cheap.
But talking about it is one thing. Anyone feel like actually building one so we can compare?
Maybe it's because the people writing these, deep down, really want it to become a reality, and their dreams get in the way of logic and reality.
Who knows, at any rate however, it's fun to dream about what it would be like to be able to replace my car with one of these.
Putting the discussion on whether this is a good idea or not aside (you guys have already discussed that quite a bit), it's interesting to see how they are going about deploying this.
I'm sure if they were doing this a few years back they would have provided sample code for MS sites and left the others to come up with their own implementations. It's interesting to see that more and more they are leaving their MS lock in tactics behind.
And I wonder how hard MS will be trying to persuade them to reconsider.
Wouldn't surprise me if in a few weeks time there is another article about how MS gave them a rather nice deal and they decided to reconsider their OS of choice.
Cool,
Can't wait to see the article about how people have gotten around this then. I'm always intrigued by the clever ways people invent to get around these sorts of systems.
Whether this activity is considered evil or not I won't get into an argument over. Partly because I can't decide at this point which side to take.
Regardless though, even if it is decided that it is infact *Evil*, my bet is that that will soon be forgotten several months down the track when lots of people start going to Google regularly to look up local business information.
Slashdot Mirror
The true innovation will come when this technology is applied to pron.
Voice control has some potential but I think it is one of those technologies that should be a complement to existing input mechanisms (ie keyboard and mouse).
eg. When doing my normal work I want to use keyboard and mouse as it is more efficient and flexible. Then the phone rings, I pick it up and shortly into the conversation I realise that this is going to be a longer conversation. At which point I just say "computer, save document" rather than having to go back to the keyboard and mouse to do so.
I think they may have copied the idea from us. Take a look at this page http://www.engcom.net/component/option,com_grid/Itemid,59/ It never really took off on our site (most likely because we never got a critical mass of visitors, but that's another story). Still if they did, it's gratifying to see the idea taken and implemented successfully. (Also, if they did then some recognition would be nice)
They were also considering testing mice but they were worried that they may stumble onto something very scary (and also that the Hitchhikers guide might be correct)
While I don't think MacGyver is the best example. I agree with you that we need more focus on thinking and improvising and creativity in our teaching. I don't know what the rest of the world is like but here in Australia we are increasingly teaching to the exam, in what I guess you could call recipe teaching. Students no longer have an understanding of the material, nor a desire to understand the material, they instead know how to regurgitate recipes for things and this behaviour gets reinforced when they get good grades for doing such. Bringing more English into Science and Maths would be a great way to foster those attitudes within students. Exploring not only an idea but the background behind it (how it was discovered/derived/etc) and how it's applied in the real world would be good for inspiring students.
This could indeed be true. But I'm wondering if it goes further. I wonder what the possibility is that this was an experiment observe just how people are analysing this information and the patterns in which it would spread. Which would be useful information to know for various reasons.
well you may be right on the power side of things, but no on the cost I would have thought. Those PS3's aren't exactly cheap. But talking about it is one thing. Anyone feel like actually building one so we can compare?
Maybe it's because the people writing these, deep down, really want it to become a reality, and their dreams get in the way of logic and reality. Who knows, at any rate however, it's fun to dream about what it would be like to be able to replace my car with one of these.
Yeah, followed by the new marketing campaign: "Nobody else makes it this easy for your details to reach more employers"
Putting the discussion on whether this is a good idea or not aside (you guys have already discussed that quite a bit), it's interesting to see how they are going about deploying this. I'm sure if they were doing this a few years back they would have provided sample code for MS sites and left the others to come up with their own implementations. It's interesting to see that more and more they are leaving their MS lock in tactics behind.
And I wonder how hard MS will be trying to persuade them to reconsider. Wouldn't surprise me if in a few weeks time there is another article about how MS gave them a rather nice deal and they decided to reconsider their OS of choice.
Cool, Can't wait to see the article about how people have gotten around this then. I'm always intrigued by the clever ways people invent to get around these sorts of systems.
Well like anything else, I'm sure it'll be refined over time and the costs will come down.
Whether this activity is considered evil or not I won't get into an argument over. Partly because I can't decide at this point which side to take. Regardless though, even if it is decided that it is infact *Evil*, my bet is that that will soon be forgotten several months down the track when lots of people start going to Google regularly to look up local business information.
And the next question would be whether Google would actually post these businesses as well.